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I-  vo 


HEBREW   UNION   COLLEGE 

AND  OTHER  ADDRESSES 

DR.  KAUFMAN  KOHLER 
PRESIDENT,  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE 


V/  lCcc 


HEBREW  UNION 
COLLEGE 

AND 

OTHER  ADDRESSES 


BY 
DR.  KAUFMAN  KOHLER 

PRESIDENT,  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE 


CINCINNATI 

ARK  PUBLISHING  CO. 
1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916, 

BY 
ARK  PUBLISHING  CO. 


Stack 
Annex 


TO 

MY    ALL-BELOVED    WIFE 

MY  FAITHFUL    HELPMATE    IN   ALL    MY 
ACTIVITIES   AND    ASPIRATIONS 

IN    LOVING    DEVOTION 


PREFACE. 

In  selecting  the  following  Addresses  and  Dis- 
courses to  appear  in  book  form,  I  had  two  objects  in 
view :  The  one  is  to  give  permanency  to  those  memor- 
able events  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  Union  Col- 
lege, of  which  it  has  been  vouchsafed  to  me  to  be 
the  witness,  or  participant,  beginning  with  a  time 
wrhen  the  great  founder  of  the  institution,  Isaac  M. 
Wise,  was  still  shaping  its  destinies  and  down  to  the 
period  of  twelve  years  or  more  during  which  I  have 
served  as  its  President.  These  addresses  may  per- 
haps serve  to  record  these  landmarks  in  the  progress 
of  the  College  and  to  some  extent  also  in  the  progress 
of  American  Reform  Judaism  in  general.  The  other 
object  I  had  in  view  was  to  acquaint  the  general 
public  with  the  views  and  aims  of  Reform  Judaism 
and  with  the  great  personalities  who,  "with  their 
leaders'  staves  digged  the  well  of  living  waters"  to 
quench  the  thirst  of  the  people  and  their  flocks. 

Other  discourses  in  this  collection  may  be  of 
interest  to  the  reader  as  far  as  they  cast  some  side- 
lights on  various  phases  of  Jewish  history  and  Jewish 
lore. 

The  collection  closes  perhaps  not  inaptly  with  a 
tribute  of  esteem  paid  by  the  writer  on  behalf  of  the 


viii  PREFACE 

Board  of  Governors,  the  Faculty  and  the  student 
body  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College  to  the  memory  of 
Dr.  Solomon  Schechter,  the  late  and  much  lamented 
President  of  our  sister-institution,  whose  recent 
demise  has  created  a  void  in  the  ranks  of  the  scho- 
larly world  which  cannot  easily  be  filled,  and  who  will 
ever  shine  as  a  star  of  great  magnitude  among  those 
who  increased  the  knowledge  and  enlarged  the  scope 
of  the  Torah. 

May  this  collection  contribute  its  humble  part 
to  a  fuller  understanding  of  the  aims  and  needs  of 
American  Judaism. 

DR.  K.  KOHLER. 
Cincinnati,  March,  1916. 


CONTENTS. 

1.  A  Well  of  Living  Waters,  Address  at  the  first  Col- 

lege Graduation,  1883 1 

2.  The  Hebrew  Union   College   Inaugural  Address,  1903     11 

3.  Address  at  the  Corner-Stone  Laying  of  the  new  He- 

brew Union  College  Buildings,  1911 31 

4.  Dedication  Address  at  the  new  College  Building,  1913  39 

5.  Isaac  M.  Wise,  Founder's  Day  Address,  1912       .      .  51 

6.  Moses    Mielziner,   at   the   First   Anniversary   of    His 

Death,  1904 59 

7.  David  Einhorn  and  Samuel  Adler,  Centennary  Address, 

1909 67 

8.  Samuel  Hirsch,  Memorial  Address,  1889    ....     75 

9.  Abraham  Geiger,  Centennary  Address,  1910  ...     83 

10.  "The    Peace    Mission   of   Judaism,"    Address   at   the 

Opening  of  the  College,  1914 99 

11.  Priest,  Prophet  and  Preacher,  Sunday  Discourse,  1888  109 

12.  Dedication  of  the  new  Temple   Beth   El,  New  York, 

1891 123 

13.  Dedication  of  the  new  Temple  Sinai,  Chicago,  1912  133 

14.  The  Ethical  Basis  of  Judaism,  1886 143 

15.  Israel's  Mission  in  the  World,  1915 161 

16.  The  Bible  in  the  Light  of  Modern   Research,  Sunday 
Lecture,  1887 173 

17.  The  Wandering  Jew,  1888 185 

18.  American  Judaism,  1911 195 

19.  Moses  and  Jesus,  1892 215 

20.  The  Historical  Development  of  Jewish  Charity,  1890  229 

21.  The  Miracles  of  the  Bible,  1890      .      .     .      .      .      .253 

22.  The  New  Translation  of  the  Bible,  1914     .      .      .      .267 

23.  Woman's  Influence  on  Judaism,  1906 273 

24.  Origin  and  Function  of  Ceremonies  in  Judaism,  1907  297 

25.  Solomon  Schechter,  1915 323 


1. 

A  WELL  OF  LIVING  WATERS.* 

THIS  IS  indeed  a  most  glorious  Sabbath  for 
you,  one  that  must  needs  fill  your  hearts  with 
joy  and  pride,  for  you  see  your  fondest  hopes  realized, 
a  ten  years'  arduous  and  mighty  work,  the  long-cher- 
ished plan  of  our  energetic  and  enthusiastic  friend, 
the  noble,  untiring  efforts  of  a  few  eminently  generous- 
hearted  and  whole-souled  devotees  to  the  Jewish 
cause,  crowned  with  the  most  brilliant  success.  I 
hail  the  opportunity  offered  of  expressing  my  deep 
and  sincere  recognition  and  admiration  of  what  you 
have  achieved.  As  I  recall  the  many  difficulties  you 
had  to  cope  with,  the  many  drawbacks  and  obstacles 
you  had  to  overcome,  the  fears  and  apprehensions  you 
had  to  dispel,  I  can  not  but  say:  The  Lord  is  with 
thee,  thou  mighty  man  of  valor!  Behold,  the  Union 
of  American  Hebrew  Congregations,  opposed  from 
all  sides,  is  an  established  fact,  a  power  working  for 
the  good  of  Israel.  The  College,  its  bright  jewel,  at 
first  looked  at  with  sneers  and  skepticism,  has  stood 
the  test.  It  has  gone  through  its  critical  teething 
period.  It  stands  there  as  an  ornament  of  American 
Judaism,  a  foundation  of  hope  for  the  future,  a 
testimony  of  religious  zeal  and  devotion,  by  its 

*Sermon  preached  at  the  Plum  Street  Temple  on  the  Sabbath 
previous  to  the  first  Graduation  Exercises  at  the  Hebrew 
Union  College,  July,  1883. 


HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


intrinsic  value  and  usefulness  outshining  any  other 
institution  of  liberal-hearted  American  Israel!  And 
I  feel  confident  that  it  will  become  the  focus  of 
American  learning,  heart  and  center  of  American 
Judaism.  Subject  and  text  of  my  discourse  are 
suggested  by  to-day's  Sabbath  lesson,  which  reads: 
The  Israelites  arrived  at  the  well,  that  is  the  well 
of  which  God  spoke  to  Moses:  "Gather  the  people 
together,  and  I  will  give  them  water."  Then  Israel 
sang  the  song:  "Rise  up,  O  well!  Sing  ye  unto  it! 
The  well  the  princes  dug,  the  nobles  of  the  people 
dug  it  with  their  staves,  with  the  lawgiver's  staff." 
Literally  taken,  this  is  a  genuine  Bedouin  song, 
an  exultation  over  the  discovery  of  water,  so  precious 
a  boon  for  the  exhausted  caravan  on  the  parched 
desert  soil.  Still,  to  us  the  Bible  is  no  mere  collection 
of  Oriental  poetry.  It  is  our  treasury  of  inspiration 
in  accord  with  our  own  joys  and  needs.  Its  tunes 
correspond  to  the  throbbings  of  our  heart.  It  is 
the  book  we  consult  on  all  the  living  issues  of  the 
age.  And  hearken!  Has  the  old  desert  song  become 
faint?  I  hear  the  melodious  strains  still  vibrating 
in  our  ears:  "Rise  up,  O  well,  dug  by  our  princes 
some  three  thousand  years  ago!  Sing  ye  unto  the 
well  of  living  waters  that  rushed  forth,  bright  and 
pure,  from  Sinai's  rock  at  the  touch  of  Moses,  the 
lawgiver's  staff!"  Thank  God,  the  well  has  not  been 
dried  up,  but,  in  unabated  forces,  re-echoes  the  divine 
call:  "Oh,  ye  thirsty,  go  for  the  water!"  Like 
Miriam's  well  in  the  legend,  it  has  followed  us  on 
our  march  through  the  lands  and  ages.  It  has 
accompanied  us  across  the  sea.  Not  Israel's  flock 


A   WELL  OF  LIVING  WATER 


only,  but  the  entire  civilized  world  has  rallied  around 
it  to  draw  life  and  vigor,  comfort  and  inspiration, 
freedom  and  truth  from  its  cheering  heavenly  fluid. 
But  we  have  remained  faithful  keepers  and  guardians 
of  the  perennial  fount.  And  now  an  exclamation  of 
joy  goes  throughout  the  camp  of  American  Israel: 
"We  have  found  water  for  the  young  flock.".  We 
need  not  fear  for  the  future.  Planted  on  the  living 
waters  of  knowledge  of  God,  American  Judaism  is 
sure  to  flourish. 

Consider  for  a  few  moments  with  me,  what  lent 
Judaism  its  matchless  strength,  its  invulnerable 
vitality?  By  what  magic  spell  did  the  small  shepherd- 
people  successfully  battle  with  the  great  nations  of 
heathendom,  storm  their  walls  and  fortresses,  and 
force  them  all  to  surrender  their  gods,  their  religious 
and  philosophical  structures  to  Israel's  great  Lord 
of  hosts?  It  was  all  the  work  of  that  wondrous  well 
of  the  Torah.  Paganism  rendered  life  a  barren  desert, 
offering  no  living  water  for  the  thirsty  soul,  no  com- 
forting and  refreshing  word  of  cheer  from  above  to 
all  the  sighs  and'  cries  of  man's  longing  and  craving 
spirit.  It  displayed  but  wild  fancies,  forms  of  a  weird 
imagination  to  mock  him,  Fata  Morgana  to  lure 
him  into  ruin  and  despair.  Heathenism  was  a  sys- 
tem of  illusions  under  hierarchical  rule,  keeping  the 
masses  in  bondage  and  darkness.  To  inquire  and  to 
know  was  to  give  it  a  death-blow.  Before  the  dawn 
of  reason  its  specters  fled.  At  the  approach  of 
philosophy  it  faded  away. 

Judaism,  on  the  contrary,  kindled  the  lamp  of 
reason  and  knowledge,  long  hid  in  man.  Jewish 


HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


revelation  swung  the  windows  of  Heaven  wide  open 
to  throw  light  on  man's  path.  Instead  of  mysteries 
it  offered  instruction,  instead  of  a  blind  faith,  living 
words  of  truth.  In  place  of  fear  of  a  blind,  passionate 
will,  or  of  an  iron,  relentless  fate,  it  planted  love  for 
and  confidence  in  a  God  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
It  engaged  the  thinking  faculties  of  man,  telling  him: 
Follow  your  reason,  and  you  can  not  help  finding 
God  on  the  top  of  the  ladder.  In  nature's  beauty  and 
order  behold  the  hem  of  the  garment  of  His  glory. 
Unlock  all  its  secrets,  and  you  will  ever  more  admire 
the  wondrous  ways  and  proof  of  His  ever-working 
loom.  Gaze  at  the  mighty  procession  of  ages,  at  the 
majestic  pageant  of  centuries  and  epochs,  and  you 
hear  His  commanding  voice  marshalling  all  the 
forces  behind  the  scene.  Within  your  bosom,  heaving 
with  gladness  or  sadness  at  the  soft  whispers  or  awful 
thunders  within,  you  feel  His  touch;  in  sunshine  and 
storm  of  destiny,  in  the  triumphs  or  defeats  of  history 
you  recognize  His  countenance  smiling  or  frowning 
upon  the  works  of  men.  You  are  not  forsaken  nor 
forlorn.  God,  however  high  and  lofty,  is  ever  near 
you.  All  your  toils  are  means  of  triumph,  all  your 
struggles  pathways  to  victory.  The  world  is  built 
on  the  fiery  wheels  of  God's  chariot  of  justice.  It 
is  ever  moving,  ever  progressing.  You  need  not 
wait  and  crave  for  a  world  beyond  the  grave.  Right 
here  on  earth  you  are,  as  His  child  and  co-laborer, 
bidden  to  build  a  kingdom  of  truth  and  righteousness, 
and  the  end  is  not  reached  until  the  earth  is  full  of 
knowledge  of  God,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea.  This 
is  Judaism.  And  does  this  not  harmoniously  chime 
in  with  all  human  progress  and  civilization?  Does 


A   WELL  OF  LIVING  WATER 


this  not  exactly  accord  with  all  the  lofty  ideals  of 
men,  with  the  noble  endeavor  of  the  ages,  with  the 
higher  aims  and  goals  of  every  science  and  art? 
Knowledge,  therefore,  ever  was  the  powerful  ally 
and  friend  of  Judaism,  "Speak  to  wisdom,  thou  art 
my  sister,"  was  its  watchword.  Indeed,  wisdom 
spread  its  bright  wings  over  the  cradle  of  Moses  in 
Egypt  and  over  King  Solomon's  Temple  resplendent 
with  the  beauty  of  Phoenician  art.  It  unveiled  its 
secret  to  high-soaring  Isaiah,  and  enlightened  the 
Jewish  exiles  in  Babylon.  Open  the  pages  of  the 
Bible,  and  you  discover  everywhere  the  imprints  of 
hoary  Babylonian  lore.  Read  Talmud  and  Midrash, 
and  you  hear  the  echo  of  Grecian  philosophy  and 
science.  Look  at  the  wealthy  merchant-city  of  Alex- 
andria. How  nobly  do  the  Jews  there  strive  for  a 
harmonious  blending  of  Greek  thought  with  the 
Sinaic  truth!  Or  go  still  further  down  in  Jewish 
history.  What  a  brilliancy  of  light  radiates  from  the 
industrious  fellowship  of  Arabic  and  Jewish  scholars! 
Its  bright  rays  illumined  the  dreary  night  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  helped  to  kindle  the  first  sparks 
of  our  much-boasted  modern  enlightenment  and 
culture.  Everywhere  the  Jews  were  the  banner- 
bearers  of  civilization,  the  pioneers  of  knowledge. 
And  why?  Because  light  was  the  vital  element  of 
Judaism,  learning  its  great  propelling  power.  Like 
a  true  sage,  Israel  gathered  knowledge  from  every 
source  in  order  to  brighten  up  the  mental  horizon 
and  reflect  new  splendor  on  God's  throne.  And  this 
constant  influx  of  new  ideas,  this  intermingling  with 
many  streams  of  knowledge  prevented  the  waters  of 
the  Sinai  rock  from  becoming  a  stagnant  pool,  a 


6  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

petrified  creed.  Judaism  remained  an  ever-living 
fountain  of  truth,  fresh  and  clear  like  a  crystal  spring. 
Christianity  sacrificed  the  truth, subordinating  reason 
in  order  to  win  the  hearts  of  the  masses.  Judaism 
never  compromised,  never  surrendered,  proudly 
saying  with  Abraham  in  the  Haggadah:  "Though 
the  whole  world  be  on  the  other  side,  I,  having  God 
and  truth  with  me,  am  in  the  majority,  and  shall 
win  the  battle."  What  harm  can  free  investigation 
and  criticism  do  us?  Let  those  be  alarmed  whose 
belief  is  like  a  broken  cistern  which  holds  no  water. 
Let  those  fear  who  persist  in  drinking  the  stale  and 
putrid  water  from  the  wornout  buckets  used  when 
far  away  from  refreshing  springs.  Earnest  search 
after  truth  and  goodness  can  only  lead  farther  up 
to  the  great  Fountain-head  of  all  wisdom,  to  the 
Sublime  Intellect.  Many  a  problem  during  our  age 
has  been  anticipated  by  our  old  Jewish  thinkers, 
and  where  no  difficulties  and  doubts  have  sprung  up, 
we  can  afford  to  meet  them  fairly  and  squarely. 
The  foundation  of  our  faith  will  never  give  way. 
As  long  as  man  yearns  for  the  truth,  the  well  of 
Sinai  will  refresh  his  soul  in  the  wilderness.  Revela- 
tion is  an  ever  running  stream,  never  to  be  exhausted. 
Each  age,  each  student  has  a  share  in  it.  Our  age 
thirsts  for  fresh  and  clear  water  from  the  perennial 
well  of  humanity.  Why  not  pour  it  out  freely  from 
Sinai's  rock?  Why  not  open  wide  the  floodgates  of 
knowledge,  so  that  people  will  espouse  our  cause, 
and  drink  with  delight  from  the  fount  of  salvation 
and  truth?  Says  God:  "Gather  the  whole  people 
together,  and  I  will  give  them  water." 


A   WELL  OF  LIVING  WATER 


Yes,  all  people;  not  the  priests  merely.  No 
distinction  between  priest  and  layman,  except  that 
the  one  be  teacher  and  the  other  the  learner.  Like 
air  and  water,  truth  belongs  to  all.  All  were  called 
to  stand  at  the  foot  of  Sinai  and  listen  to  the  word  of 
God.  Common  instruction  is  the  only  check  to 
bigotry  and  fanaticism.  Ignorance  is  a  disgrace 
among  Jews.  Next  to  love  of  God  comes  the  com- 
mandment to  teach  the  children.  Each  parent  is 
to  be  a  teacher  in  his  household;  each  Jew  a  mis- 
sionary of  truth — a  priest  of  humanity.  The  first 
Jew  Aristotle,  the  greatest  of  the  Greek  sages,  saw 
and  spoke  to  made  such  an  impression  upon  him 
that  he  took  the  Jews  as  a  class  of  philosophers.  A 
people  of  thinkers,  they  were  called  by  Hegel,  the 
German  philosopher,  who  was  anything  but  fond  of 
them.  Constant  training  of  the  mind,  continued 
cultivation  of  knowledge,  rendered  them,  indeed,  the 
world's  intellectual  aristocracy.  To  it  their  financial 
success,  their  material  prosperity,  their  important 
position  in  the  world's  commerce  is  due.  Still,  we 
have  not  gone  through  the  fiery  furnace  of  trial  and 
suffering  in  order  to  be  rulers  of  the  money  market, 
accumulators  of  wealth,  but  to  be  a  light  to  the 
nations,  disseminators  of  spiritual  treasures  all  over 
the  earth.  Seats  of  knowledge,  institutions  of  learn- 
ing, are  our  mines  of  riches,  our  reservoirs  of  power. 
They  are  our  armories  and  strongholds,  our  standards 
of  victory,  our  watchfires  in  the  camp.  Wherever  the 
lamp  of  the  Torah  was  burning,  Judaism  felt  safe. 
A  seat  of  learning  in  Jamnia  was  all  Jochanan  ben 
Sakkai  asked  for,  when  Titus'  soldiers  threw  the 


8  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

firebrand  into  the  Temple.  And  when,  under  Chris- 
tian emperors,  Palestine  no  longer  offered  a  shelter 
to  her  own  children,  Babylonia's  flourishing  academies 
became  shining  stars  of  hope.  No  sooner  did  the 
East  show  signs  of  exhaustion,  than  the  schools  in 
the  West  turned  out  to  be  light-houses  to  storm-tossed 
Israel.  With  juster  pride  than  the  king,  Israel  may 
boast:  "Within  my  kingdom  the  sun  never  sets." 
And  it  was  always  the  highest  ambition  and  privilege 
of  Jewish  wealth  to  patronize  study  and  help  promul- 
gate knowledge. 

It  has  now  devolved  on  American  Israel  to  create 
a  focus  of  learning.  German  Judaism,  the  pioneer 
of  reform  and  progress,  the  nursery  of  modern 
thought  and  learning,  is  apparently  on  the  decline. 
The  men  to  courageously  uphold  the  flag  of  world- 
conquering,  enlightened  and  progressive  Judaism 
are  daily  growing  less  in  number  and  strength.  It 
is  your  opportunity,  American  Israelites,  to  bring 
about  a  soul-stirring  revival  like  that  of  brilliant 
Spain.  Unshackled  by  blind  belief  in  authority,  un- 
trammeled  by  fear  and  prejudice,  on  freedom's  holy 
soil,  at  the  cradle  of  a  new  humanity,  in  a  land  which 
in  every  respect  tends  to  create  a  larger  type  of 
manhood,  you  can  render  the  Jewish  religion  a  foun- 
tain of  truth,  of  inspiration  and  hope  to  rally  and 
refresh  all  the  flocks  of  mankind.  Which  religion 
corresponds  so  closely  to  the  broad,  liberal  and 
philanthropic  aspirations  and  sympathies  of  the 
American  heart,  to  the  vigorous,  practical  grasp 
of  the  American  mind  as  Israel's  pure  monotheism, 
which  has  its  deep  roots  in  the  remotest  past,  and 


A   WELL  OF  LIVING  WATER 


holds  forth  its  bright  and  glorious  promises  for  the 
distant  future  of  mankind?  And  what  but  Jewish 
scholarship  possesses  the  key  to  unlock  the  treasures 
of  the  Bible  and  of  all  religious  and  philosophical 
systems  built  on  it?  Knowledge  only  renders  man 
truly  free  and  independent ;  knowledge  only,  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  our  priceless  world-wide  literature; 
an  extensive  study  of  our  unparalleled  history  in- 
spires us  with  a  love  and  enthusiasm  for  our  time- 
honored  faith  and  for  our  lofty  mission  for  humanity, 
whose  thorn-crowned  martyr-priest  Israel  has  been 
for  all  these  centuries,  and  whose  triumphant  Messiah 
he  is  to  be. 

A  Jewish  University,  therefore,  uniting  and 
representing  the  best  Jewish  wisdom  and  scholarship, 
disseminating  knowledge,  sending  out  faithful  and 
earnest  propagators  of  truth,  brave  champions  of 
faith  and  enlightenment,  true  missionaries  of  Judaism, 
forms  the  supporting  pillar  and  the  crowning  pinnacle 
of  American  Judaism.  It  is  our  safeguard  and  source 
of  strength.  In  it  all  our  material  success  and  social 
prosperity  must  culminate.  And  where  on  this 
blessed  continent  is  there  a  city  like  this  as  broad 
in  its  social  views,  where  a  community  in  which 
such  sweet  harmony  exists  among  various  sects, 
where  Jewish  temples  and  Catholic,  Methodist  and 
Unitarian  churches  so  fraternally  grasp  each  other's 
hand  to  let  people  feel  that  they  all  walk  under  one 
paternal  roof,  beneath  the  broad  canopy  of  heaven? 
Well,  then,  the  beginning  has  nobly  been  made. 
The  waters  of  Jewish  knowledge  are  freely  and 
lavishly  offered.  It  is  no  longer  a  well  of  strife  and 


10  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

jealousy,  a  well  of  animosity  and  contention.  It 
is  a  well  of  harmony  and  peace,  around  which  the 
shepherds  rally  amicably  with  their  flocks.  Well 
sing  ye  unto  it:  Spring  up,  O  well,  and  spread 
blessing  near  and  far.  Let  princes  and  people,  all 
the  noble-souled  and  liberal-hearted  assist  in  digging 
and  maintaining  it.  May  it  realize  all  our  hopes 
and  fair  visions!  May  it  lead  Jewish  America  from 
a  state  of  barrenness  to  intellectual  riches,  to  a  true 
appreciation  of  God's  gift,  to  the  bright  Pisgah  height 
of  humanity,  so  that  Cincinnati  will  be  blessed  by 
all  Jewish  communities  of  America  as  a  mother  city 
in  Israel,  and  all  lands  will  join  America  in  singing 
the  great  song  of  thanksgiving  to  God. 
Amen! 


2. 

INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

WHAT  A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING 
SHOULD  BE. 

"T\yTAY  your  strength  and  your  power  to  accom- 
•i.'M.  plish  good  ever  increase."  In  this  form  in 
which  the  Jew  of  old  used  to  utter  his  thanks,  let  me 
express  to  you,  gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Governors, 
my  grateful  appreciation  of  the  signal  honors  shown 
to  me  in  this  solemn  hour,  the  proudest  moment  of 
my  life,  and  of  the  kind  words  expressive  of  your 
regard  and  your  confidence  addressed  to  me  while 
placing  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  the  object  of 
your  highest  pride  and  solicitude,  into  my  charge. 
I  am  fully  conscious  of  the  arduous  task,  the  great 
duties  and  responsibilities  which  devolve  upon  me, 
and  all  the  laudations  I  receive  fill  my  soul  only  with 
all  the  greater  humility  and  awe  in  view  of  my  untried 
powers  in  this  new  field  of  work.  But  it  is  the  desire 
of  working  out,  with  what  of  experience  and  knowl- 
edge God  has  granted  me,  the  highest  destinies  of 
the  college,  that  prompted  me  to  give  up  a  thirty- 
four  years'  service  in  the  ministry  and  follow  your 
call  to  the  presidency.  It  is  no  small  matter,  I  know, 
to  be  successor  to  Isaac  M.  Wise,  the  founder 
of  this  college,  whose  powerful  personality  achieved 

*Delivered   at   the   Hebrew    Union    College,    Sunday,    October 
18,  1903. 


12  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


wondrous  success  where  many  other  great  leaders 
failed.  Nor  indeed  do  I  flatter  myself  that  I  possess 
the  qualities  that  made  him  the  leader  of  leaders 
and  the  master-builder  in  American  Israel.  In  one 
thing,  however,  I  dare  say  I  am  not  behind  my 
illustrious  predecessor,  and  that  is  in  ardent  love  and 
zeal  for  Israel's  sacred  treasure,  the  Torah.  Ever 
since  I  sat,  a  young  pious  lad,  at  the  feet  of  my  sainted 
teachers,  Rabbi  Samuel  Bondi,  in  Mainz,  of  Jacob 
Ettlinger,  in  Altona,  and  Samson  Raphael  Hirsch, 
in  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  and  others,  it  was  my 
highest  ambition  and  aim  to  lift  up  the  standard  of 
the  Law  and  disseminate  its  truths;  and  while  under 
the  influence  of  more  extensive  study  and  inde- 
pendent research,  my  views  have  since  undergone  a 
mighty  change,  the  well-spring  of  my  love  and 
enthusiasm  has  not  dried  up,  and  with  unspeakable 
joy  and  thanksgiving  to  God  do  I  hail  this  hour  as 
the  realization  of  my  holiest  dream.  But,  with  the 
Psalmist,  I  exclaim:  "Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not 
unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  belongeth  the  glory!" 
It  is  the  diadem  of  the  Torah,  the  crown  of  Jewish 
learning,  that  I  long  to  see  again  placed  upon  the 
brow  of  modern  Israel.  "The  Torah  is  thy  life  and 
the  length  of  thy  days."  The  Torah,  the  fount  of 
light  and  joy,  the  comfort  and  mainstay  of  the  Jew 
in  darkest  time  and  amid  direst  distress,  must  again 
occupy  the  central  place  in  our  hearts  and  homes  and 
be  rendered  the  life-center  of  the  Jewish  community. 
With  the  Torah  as  the  rallying  point  of  the  race, 
the  Jew  is  unconquerable  and  irresistible;  without  it 
he  is  bound  to  go  down  and  be  lost,  whether  in  free 
America  or  under  Turkish  or  British  suzerainty. 


13 


The  Torah  establishes  his  claim  as  the  God-chosen 
servant  of  humanity;  his  material  success  only  pro- 
vokes jealousy  and  hatred,  notwithstanding  all  his 
philanthropic  endeavors.  To  the  promotion  and 
propagation  of  the  Torah,  to  the  sending  forth  of  the 
Testimony,  the  message  of  Israel's  God  sealed  upon 
the  lips  of  disciples,  I  shall,  under  God's  guidance, 
consecrate  my  life  and  my  labors  for  the  rest  of  my 
days.  But  what  is  the  Torah  which  Israel  is  commis- 
sioned to  teach  and  to  propagate?  And  what  should 
a  Seat  of  Jewish  Learning  be  to  the  Jewish  community 
and  to  the  world  at  large?  These  are,  I  think,  the 
two  pivoted  questions  which  I ,  as  one  who  is  expected 
to  mould  the  character  and  destiny  of  a  large  body  of 
American  Israel,  ought  to  answer  today. 

I. 

Allow  me  to  quote  the  words  by  which  you  have 
so  aptly  and  tersely  characterized  the  work  before 
me,  and  my  attitude  to  the  past  history  of  the  college: 
"With  Dr.  Wise  and  Dr.  Mielziner,  of  blessed  memory, 
the  era  of  construction  has  passed,  and  now  the  period 
of  development  begins."  Indeed,  Dr.  Wise  has  built 
well  and  enduringly,  and  the  institution  which  he 
reared  stands  firmly  established  upon  the  broad  and 
solid  foundations  of  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew 
Congregations.  What  Abba  Areka  did  for  Baby- 
lonia, Isaac  M.  Wise  did  for  America,  and  well  may 
he,  like  him,  be  called  Rab,  "the  Master."  Imbued 
with  his  spirit  and  zeal  have  his  disciples,  well  nigh 
a  hundred  in  number,  gone  forth  all  over  the  land  as 
eloquent  preachers  and  indefatigable  workers  to 
win  the  rising  generation  for  Israel's  Only  One  and 


14  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

impart  new  life  and  vigor  to  American  Israel.  All 
this  beautiful  sowing  and  planting,  this  great  spirit- 
ual harvest,  is  the  unique  work  of  the  organizing 
genius  of  Dr.  Wise,  who,  with  his  heart  and  his  ear 
ever  close  to  the  people,  and  understanding  their 
need,  created,  with  the  scanty  means  at  his  disposal 
and  a  few  helpers,  the  institution  which  furnished  the 
congregations  with  rabbis  and  leaders  such  as  they 
required  and  yearned  for. 

To-day  new  conditions  have  risen,  and  new  and 
higher  claims  are  put  upon  the  college.  The  old 
generation,  mostly  of  foreign  birth,  with  a  deep 
religious  feeling  ingrained  from  childhood,  with 
fervent  religious  needs  and  deeply-rooted  religious 
convictions  and  customs,  is  fast  dwindling  away. 
A  new  generation,  thoroughly  American  in  educa- 
tion, culture  and  tastes,  sits  in  the  pew  waiting  for 
inspiration  from  the  pulpit.  It  does  not  want  mere 
oratory  which  delights  and  thrills  for  the  moment, 
but  has  no  lasting  effect.  It  wants  the  fire  from 
heaven  that  sets  every  fibre  ablaze  with  fear  of  God. 
It  wants  power.  Whence,  then,  should  come  the 
power  to  the  preacher  unless  he  has  drunk  deeply 
at  the  fount  of  Jewish  knowledge,  unless  the  Beth 
ha  Midrash,  the  institution  of  learning,  represents, 
above  all,  power.  "The  Torah  is  nothing  if  not 
power,  victory-boding  strength."  Our  various  Jewish 
institutions  of  learning,  wherever  they  may  be,  lack 
the  essential  element  of  efficiency — they  lack  power. 
As  long  as  the  Jew's  life  and  thought  were  centered 
upon  the  Talmud,  and  his  entire  conduct  regulated 
by  the  Rabbinic  Code,  the  Shulhan  Aruk,  the  Yeshi- 
bah  or  Rabbinical  Academy  fulfilled  its  high  purpose 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  15 


by  equipping  not  only  the  future  Rabbi,  but  every 
capable  son  of  Israel,  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
Rabbinical  law  and  supplying  him  with  intellectual 
and  moral  fibre  to  brave  life's  struggles  and  tempta- 
tions nobly.  The  Talmud  was  the  citadel  of  the 
medieval  Jew;  behind  its  ramparts  he  was  safe  and 
strong,  fit  to  cope  with  every  emergency.  But  what 
is  the  Talmud  to  the  modern  Jew  that  the  most 
precious  hours  of  the  student  should  still  be  spent 
on  its  hair-splitting  dialectics,  upon  that  "vast, 
bottomless  sea"  out  of  which  only  few  fortunate 
divers  know  how  to  bring  the  precious  pearls  forth 
to  the  light  of  day?  It  is  but  blind  adherence  to  tra- 
ditional custom  which  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the 
theological  schools  of  Breslau,  Budapest,  and  Ber- 
lin, not  to  speak  of  the  more  conservative  seminaries, 
lay  all  possible  stress  and  value  upon  these  barren 
Halakic  subjects,  the  divine  origin  and  character  of 
which  are  believed  in  neither  by  teacher  nor  pupil, 
whereas  the  essentials  of  the  Jewish  faith,  the  great 
religious  and  philosophical  problems  of  the  age, 
Divine  Revelation  and  Authority,  Inspiration  and 
Higher  Criticism,  the  relation  of  science  to  faith, 
of  comparative  religion  or  of  Christianity  to  Judaism, 
are  timidly  shunned  as  a  "Noli  MeTangere!"-  -"Touch 
me  not."  And  what  is  the  consequence?  The  men 
that  have  gone  forth  from  these  seminaries  may 
possibly  have  enriched  the  learned  world  with  a 
treatise  on  some  obscure  Hebrew,  Arabic  or  Samaritan 
work,  and  turned  out  to  be  fine  linguists,  perchance, 
or  archaeologists  and  palaeographers  well  versed  in 
literature  and  able  to  handle  manuscripts  and  palimp- 
sests, but  they  have  missed  their  vocation.  They 


16  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


fail  to  impart  life  to  the  dry  bones  of  Judaism.  They 
lack  the  power  of  a  great,  all-enrapturing,  all-vivifying 
truth.  There  is  nothing  of  the  prophetic  spirit  in 
them  to  make  Judaism  a  power  for  an  age  weakened 
by  doubt  and  chilled  by  apathy.  One  of  the  chief 
reasons  for  the  sad  state  of  religious  life  among  the 
Jews  of  Europe  to-day,  for  the  lethargy  and  dissolu- 
tion that  has  taken  hold  of  many  Jewish  communities 
in  Europe,  is  that  the  theological  institutions  and  the 
preachers  have  relaxed  in  religious  vigor. 

The  theological  school  must  be  the  power-house 
to  supply  pulpit  and  people  with  the  dynamic  force  of 
an  all-ruling,  all-electrifying  religious  truth.  It  is  not 
enough  that  Bible  and  Talmud,  Halakah  and  Hag- 
gadah,  Hellenic  and  Arabic  literature,  Philosophy  and 
Cabala,  History  and  Literature,  Liturgy  and  Homi- 
letics  be  taught;  they  must  all  be  turned  into  vitalizing 
sparks  of  truth.  They  must  all  be  transformed  into 
spiritual  helps  and  lifts  to  unfold  the  inherent  power 
of  Judaism  in  its  manifold  stages  and  phases  of  growth. 
It  is  in  this  light  that  each  teacher,  by  showing  the 
organic  connection,  the  inner  relations  between  his 
branch  of  study  and  the  others,  can  single  out  the 
potencies,  the  spiritual,  moral  and  intellectual  kernel 
beneath  the  shell,  and  so  lay  bare  the  deeper  impulses 
and  show  the  higher  motives  that  gave  lasting  value 
and  zest  to  each  specific  study  and  movement.  In 
other  words,  the  theological  curriculum  must  mean 
not  the  registration,  but  the  profound  appreciation,  of 
all  the  religious  forces  that  were  at  work  throughout 
the  various  ages  and  lands,  while  at  the  same  time 
our  own  religious  needs  and  our  own  religious  con- 
sciousness should  form  the  object  of  our  foremost 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  17 

solicitude.  Take,  for  instance,  the  Talmudic  mar- 
riage and  divorce  laws,  most  of  which  have  lost  their 
practical  significance  for  us.  There  is,  as  the  late 
Dr.  Mielziner  has  so  well  shown,  an  intrinsic  ethical 
force  attached  to  many  of  them,  which  we  cannot 
afford  to  ignore.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the 
fringes  and  phylacteries,  the  Zizith  and  Tefillin,  our 
fathers  wore.  They,  too,  present  in  the  Haggadah 
an  ethical  valuation  of  the  ceremonials  which  renders 
them  gems  upon  the  diadem  of  Judaism,  more  than 
most  of  those  who  still  wear  them  on  their  body  are 
aware  of. 

In  very  fact,  it  is  as  a  means  of  conveying  power 
and  spiritual  force  that  certain  portions  of  the 
Halakah  and  almost  the  whole  of  the  Haggadah 
should  be  taught,  and  not  for  mere  mental  gymnastics. 
For  thousands  of  years  the  treasures  of  coal  lay  an 
inert  and  seemingly  worthless  substance  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth,  until  the  scanning  eye  of  genius  turned 
them  into  sources  of  power.  There  is  a  wealth  of 
spiritual  and  ethical  thought  buried  in  the  Midrash 
and  Talmud  which  must  be  turned  into  power, 
whereas  at  present  it  is  treated  as  dead  matter. 
But  in  like  manner  do  most  of  the  branches  of  Jewish 
learning  wait  for  the  creative  mind  that  extracts 
from  them  the  element  of  power.  Let  but  the  human 
side,  the  moral  sentiment,  the  deeper  life-problem  in 
Jewish  history  or  any  of  the  Rabbinical,  philosophical 
or  mystic  writings  be  touched,  and  the  driest  subjects 
become  interesting,  instructive  and  fascinating. 

Yes,  a  store-house  of  spiritual  power  the  theo- 
logical school  must  be,  and  it  is  foolish  and  wrong  to 
evade  the  discussion  of  vexatious  problems  of  the 


18  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


day.  You  fail  to  train  men  of  power  for  the  ministry, 
if  you  ignore  or  simply  condemn  the  Higher  Biblical 
Criticism  and  Comparative  Religion  and  Law  as 
detrimental  to  the  faith  or  to  reverence  for  the  Bible. 
To  use  the  expression  of  Abtalion,  "Be  on  your  guard 
lest  the  disciples  drink  of  the  turbid  waters  and  under- 
go spiritual  death  and  the  name  of  God  be  pro- 
faned." Never  before  was  the  path  of  the  preacher 
beset  with  such  difficulties,  such  struggles  and  doubts 
as  today.  Questions  which  formerly  occupied  only 
the  mind  of  the  scholar  in  his  study  have  become  the 
great  concern  of  all  thinking  people.  Each  day  dis- 
closes some  long-hidden  document  in  the  earth  or 
some  startling  phenomenon  in  the  sky  or  the  sea  that 
threatens  to  undermine  the  very  groundwork  of  faith 
and  calls  for  a  resetting  of  the  Bible  and  a  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  whole  idea  of  Revelation  and  Creation. 
The  issue  today  is  no  longer  between  Reform  and 
Orthodoxy,  but  between  a  world  with  God  and  a 
world  without  God.  How,  then,  can  the  destinies 
of  homes  and  communities,  the  guardianship  of 
souls  and  the  future  of  humanity  be  entrusted  to 
men  who,  in  a  time  when  the  foundations  of  morality 
are  shaken  and  the  peace  of  the  world  quivers  under 
the  fierce  contest  of  ideas,  lack  power  and  principle, 
wavering  and  oscillating  between  agnosticism  and 
belief,  between  Judaism  and  Unitarianism  and  a 
dozen  other  isms,  because,  immature  in  judgment, 
they  have  eaten  of  the  unripe  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  only  to  expose  their  own  nakedness  of 
soul?  Rabbinical  scholarship  alone,  however  ex- 
tensive, even  inclusive  of  medieval  philosophy,  all 
the  lofty  thought  of  a  R.  Joshua  ben  Hananiah  and 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  19 

R.  Meir,  of  a  Maimuni  and  Crescas,  fails  to  solve 
the  vital  problems  for  the  seeker  after  truth  to-day. 
He  must  have  learned  how  to  penetrate  through  the 
shell  to  the  divine  kernel  and  to  view  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  growth,  the  evolution  of  matter  and  mind,  as 
divinely  designed  and  predestined,  though  necessi- 
tated by  nature  and  following  the  laws  that  rule 
all  things.  He  must,  in  other  w'ords,  like  Moses  in 
the  house  of  Pharaoh,  receive  the  nurturing  sap  of 
life  from  the  mother,  the  faith  that  gave  him  life, 
while  the  surrounding  world  offers  him  all  the  edu- 
cating influences  to  render  him  a  child  of  the  age. 
Only  then  can  he  with  a  clear  and  firm  Jewish  con- 
victions and  principles  be  a  staff  of  support  to  those 
ready  to  fall  and  a  power  to  lead  the  erring  and  way- 
ward. 

Reform  Judaism,  especially,  must  be  felt  to  be  a 
power,  the  faith  of  manhood.  It  is  calumny  to  say 
that  the  desire  for  assimilation  or  for  a  taste  of  for- 
bidden meat  created  the  Reform  movement.  The 
Reform  pioneers,  Geiger  and  Holdheim,  Einhorn, 
Samuel  Hirsch  and  Dr.  Wise,  were  men  of  power, 
of  principle,  who  brooked  no  compromise  and  never 
yielded.  They  had  the  courage  of  their  conviction 
and  throughout  life  displayed  consistency  and  stead- 
fastness of  purpose.  It  is  Romanticism  that  wants 
picturesqueness;  that  renders  Judaism  and  Synagog 
a  museum  of  antiquities,  preserving  the  forms  of  the 
past  fossilized  while  the  spirit  has  fled  long  ago. 
Such  conservatism  fails  to  engender  power,  because 
it  lacks  conviction;  it  only  creates  hypocrites,  men 
that  halt  between  the  two  sides.  Legend  tells  that 
Abraham,  who  broke  the  idols  of  his  father  courag- 


20  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


eously,  braved  the  fire  of  Nimrod's  furnace  and  was 
saved  by  the  power  of  his  faith  in  God.  whereas  Haran 
who  wavered,  not  knowing  whether  to  bow  to  the 
idol  of  Nimrod  or  to  worship  Abraham's  Only  One, 
went  into  the  fire  and  was  consumed.  An  age  of 
distraction  and  discrepancies  like  ours  requires  the 
power  of  a  positive  conviction  and  intensity  of  faith. 
Reform  Judaism  stands  for  a  religion  of  power  which 
alone  saves  man  when  in  doubt  and  trial.  Reform 
Judaism  broke  the  shackles  of  ceremonialism  and 
legalism,  because,  following  the  lead  of  the  prophets, 
it  declared  Judaism  to  be  not  a  system  of  laws  and 
statutes,  but  the  law  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
And  it  is  this  championship  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness which  alone  made  the  Jew  the  mightiest  power 
in  the  world.  The  whole  history  of  the  Jew  in  dark 
and  in  bright  ages,  the  very  life  of  the  prophets  and 
martyrs,  of  the  sages  and  the  saints  in  Israel  was  an 
exhibition  of  valor  and  heroic  strength. 

So  is  the  attitude  of  the  true  reform  Jew  today — 
of  the  Jew  who  reclaims  the  entire  so-called  Christian 
civilization  for  Judaism,  and  does  not  plan  a  retreat 
before  the  foe  by  way  of  East  Africa  or  of  Asia — that 
of  power,  power  of  the  spirit  that  will  not  yield  to 
number  and  to  physical  might.  Reform  Judaism 
is  hated  and  feared  most  by  the  anti-Semite,  because 
it  is  aggressive.  It  refuses  to  simply  take  the  de- 
fensive. It  wants  to  assert  its  power;  neither  shall  it 
rest,  until  the  whole  history  of  the  world  will  have 
been  reconstructed  on  the  principle  of  evolution, 
which  beholds  in  Christianity  as  well  as  in  Islamism 
offshoots  of  a  world-conquering  Judaism. 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  21 

II. 

But  here  I  have  already  touched  upon  the  second 
point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  as  another  of  the 
chief  aims  of  a  Jewish  institution  of  learning.  One  of 
the  ever-reiterated  maxims  of  the  Rabbis  is,  "Light 
—that  is  the  law."  The  charge  which  is  ever  brought 
forth  anew  against  Judaism  by  the  followers  of  St. 
Paul  is  that  it  is  harsh,  unrelenting  law  and  its  main 
characteristic  is  legalism  or  ritualism.  This  charge 
is  untrue.  To  the  Jew  at  all  times  his  Torah  was 
"learning,"  a  matter  of  reason  and  knowledge.  Just 
as  the  Jewish  seers  of  old  appealed  constantly  to 
reason  and  common  sense  in  order  to  establish  God's 
throne  in  the  heart  of  the  universe  and  the  heart  of 
man,  so  did  the  sages  of  the  Talmud  and  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  middle  ages  accentuate  ever  anew  the 
reasonableness  of  the  Jewish  faith.  As  Miriam  stood 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  watching  the  babe  Moses 
in  the  floating  willow  basket,  so  does  wisdom,  so 
does  knowledge  ever  stand  in  sisterly  love  and 
solicitude  watching  and  fostering  the  progress  of  the 
Jewish  faith — is  a  beautiful  remark  of  the  Midrash. 
Hence,  religion  to  the  Jew  never  was  blind  faith 
upon  the  acceptance  of  which  follows  heavenly 
reward,  but  it  is  the  light  of  God  allied  to  the  intellect, 
as  is  the  moon  that  shines  at  night  a  corollary  of  the 
bright  orb  of  day.  The  greatest  Rabbinical  author- 
ities, therefore,  were  accordingly  bold,  independent 
seekers  after  truth.  Never  could  mysticism  in  Jewish 
circles  entirely  obscure  reason  in  its  free  and  un- 
impeded sway.  And  as  the  first  rationalists  and  Bible 
critics  were  Jews,  so  did  none  hail  the  new  era  of 


22  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


reason  and  enlightenment  with  greater  delight  than 
the  son  of  Israel.  How  singular,  then,  that  the  Jew 
has  gone  out  with  the  lamp  of  knowledge  and  the 
torch  of  research  to  light  up  every  field  except  his 
own.  How  little  does  the  average  Jew  to-day  know  of 
his  own  literature;  how  scant  is  his  knowledge  re- 
garding the  Book  of  Books  which  he  handed  forth 
as  a  compass  to  man  on  his  wanderings  over  the  wide 
globe! 

The  interpretation  and  elucidation  of  the  Biblical 
writings  in  the  light  of  modern  research  has  all  been 
left  to  Christian  workers.  The  Jew  for  whom  the 
term  Amhaarez  ("Ignoramus")  was  the  most  humil- 
iating opprobrium  in  olden  times,  has  lost  all  interest 
in  his  Torah,  has  forgotten  how  to  read  his  own  sacred 
signs.  And  while  our  age  has  produced  Jewish  schol- 
ars and  investigators  of  the  first  rank  in  every  branch 
of  learning  and  literature,  those  that  have  contributed 
essentially  to  the  understanding  of  the  teachings  of 
Judaism,  or  written  standard  works  on  Jewish  life 
and  Jewish  thought  outside  of  the  Talmudic  sphere, 
are  scarcely  to  be  found  in  our  own  camp.  Worse 
than  this,  the  whole  field  of  Hellenistic  writings  and 
the  immense  number  of  Apocryphal  books  which 
cast  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  pre-Christian  centuries 
of  Jewish  history  have  been  altogether  neglected 
by  the  Jewish  student,  and  the  consequence  is  that  the 
whole  point  of  view  from  which  Jewish  history  and 
literature  have  been  written  by  Jewish  authors  is 
narrow,  onesided  and  often  altogether  false.  Neither 
the  Talmud  nor  the  New  Testament  are  fully  under- 
stood by  most  of  them.  On  the  other  hand,  non- 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  23 


Jews  have  translated  for  us  large  portions  of  our 
Rabbinic,  all  of  our  Hellenistic  and  Apocryphal 
literature  and  composed  for  us  whatever  there  exists 
of  systematic  works  on  Jewish  theology  and  ethics, 
on  Jewish  life  and  Jewish  thought.  And  now,  pray, 
read  the  classical,  the  standard  works  on  universal 
history,  or  the  history  of  the  nations,  the  races,  the 
various  epochs  of  human  culture  and  civilization; 
go  through  the  libraries  of  the  world  to  learn  what  has 
been  done  by  and  for  humanity  all  these  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  years — it  all  bears  the  imprint  of 
Christian  thought  and  sentiment;  it  is  all  written 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
rarely  with  anything  like  fairness  for  the  slandered, 
persecuted  and  outlawed  Jew,  all  claiming  the  great- 
ness and  glory  of  a  new  life  and  light  for  the  star 
that  rose  over  Bethlehem,  and  denying  to  the  Jew 
the  merit  of  having  prepared  the  soil  and  fertilized 
the  atmosphere  with  the  seeds  that  yielded  all  the 
rich  harvest  for  Christendom.  And  yet,  what  is  the 
whole  New  Testament,  the  entire  work  of  the  Church 
during  the  first  four  centuries  of  its  existence  but 
Jewish  teaching  and  practice  transferred  to  pagan 
soil  and  appropriated  by  the  disciples  of  the  Nazarene 
who  never  claimed  to  be  anything  but  a  Jew,  a  believer 
in  the  confession  "Shema  Yisrael!"  That  very  broad- 
ness and  universality  and  love,  the  preaching  of  a 
Church  Universal  which  is  claimed  for  Jesus  and 
Paul,  his  visionary  herald  and  hierophant,  was  Jew- 
ish, the  blossom  and  fruit  of  Alexandrian  Judaism, 
long  before  the  Church  had  risen  to  continue  what 
the  Jew  had  begun  and  to  reap  what  the  Jew  had 
sown. 


24  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

We  have  moved  all  along  in  the  narrow  circle  of 
Rabbinic  literature  and  failed  to  see  what  the  Jew 
in  his  love  for  God  and  humanity  had  done  in  days 
gone  by.  We  have  altogether  too  long  walked  in  the 
valley  and  neglected  to  look  around  to  see  all  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  on  the  heights  designed  and  pre- 
pared by  Israel  in  other  times.  It  is  high  time  that 
we  reclaim  what  is  our  own.  The  Jew  has  at  all  times 
been  the  true  cosmopolitan,  the  banner-bearer  of 
the  light  of  a  truth  for  all  peoples.  He  blended  Greek 
culture  and  Jewish  thought;  he  harmonized  Hellenic 
philosophy  with  Hebrew  faith;  he  stood  as  mediator 
between  Aryan  and  Semite,  working  for  true  unity 
of  the  human  race,  for  the  unity  of  God,  the  Father 
of  all  men.  And  he  alone,  amid  the  raging  warfare 
between  races  and  sects,  nations,  classes  and  creeds, 
is  destined  to  interlink  the  world  by  his  universalism, 
by  his  cosmopolitan  religion  and  his  broad  conception 
of  God  and  man.  Let  me  in  this  connection,  quote 
the  words  of  an  English  writer,  Frances  Power 
Cobbe,  penned  twenty-five  years  ago  at  the  very 
time  when  George  Eliot  wrote  her  '  Daniel  Deronda" 
to  become  the  godfather  of  Zionism:  ''Let  Reformed 
Judaism  relight  the  old  golden  candle-stick  and  set 
it  aloft  and  it  will  give  light  unto  all  which  are  in  the 
house,  not  only  of  Israel,  but  of  humanity.  A  glorious 
picture  may  in  God's  providence  await  such  purified, 
emancipated  Judaism."  .  .  .  "In  the  present  dis- 
integration of  all  religious  opinion,"  she  writes  in 
the  preface  of  her  book,  The  Scientific  Spirit  of  the 
Age,  "Judaism  may  yet  become  a  progressive  faith 
and  solve  the  great  problem  of  combining  a  theology 
consonant  to  modern  philosophy  with  a  worship 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  25 

hallowed  by  the  sacred  associations  of  the  remotest 
past." 

Out,  then,  of  the  valley  beneath,  where  we  have 
too  long,  by  a  fault  not  of  our  own,  groped  in  dark- 
ness, to  the  sunlit  heights  of  our  prophetic  mission! 
This  must  be  the  watchword  of  the  modern  Jew. 
And  where  else  but  in  America,  the  land  of  freedom, 
and  among  people  eager  to  listen  reverently  and 
fairly  to  every  message  of  truth,  may  the  Jewish 
theological  school  be  expected  to  become  a  light- 
house to  illumine  the  path  of  all  seekers  after  truth. 
In  the  light  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  as  commented 
upon  by  the  Midrash,  the  whole  process  of  the  world's 
evolution  appears  as  the  unfolding  of  the  spirit  of 
God,  and  the  story  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  the 
Messiah  of  the  nations,  receives  a  new  meaning  under 
the  searchlight  of  the  all-penetrating  lamp  of  knowl- 
ed  ge —  evolution. 

O  ye  sons  and  daughters  of  Israel,  blessed  with 
wealth!  What  an  abundance  of  beneficence  could 
you  pour  out  upon  generations  unborn,  what  a  power- 
ful incentive  to  research,  to  the  elucidation  of  Jewish 
history  and  thought,  could  you  hold  out  to  the  stu- 
dent if  you  would,  as  is  so  generously  done  for  other 
creeds,  endow  chairs  or  create  lectureships  in  con- 
nection with  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  for  Bible 
and  Assyriology,  for  Old  and  New  Testament  re- 
search, for  Hellenistic  and  Cabalistic,  Arabic  and 
Karaite  literature,  for  Jewish  theology  and  com- 
parative religion,  to  make  our  work  here  broad, 
comprehensive,  world-uplifting  and  world-enlighten- 
ing. Our  college  thus  equipped  would  become  an 
armory  like  "David's  tower  with  its  thousand 


26  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

bucklers  and  shields  of  mighty  men  built  for  defense," 
an  impregnable  fortress  of  Judaism  and  a  challenge 
to  Anti-Semitism  in  high  or  low  stations — a  true 
laboratory  of  Jewish  thought,  an  authoritative  power 
to  reconstruct  the  history  of  the  world  and  reclaim 
for  the  Jew  his  rights  and  his  titles  as  factor  of 
civilization. 

III. 

And  yet  a  college  for  the  training  of  Rabbis 
stands  for  something  higher  still.  Greater  than  all 
knowledge  and  wisdom  is  life  itself,  with  its  thousand 
duties  and  opportunities.  A  college  that  does  not 
prepare  its  disciples  for  the  great  issues,  the  stern 
realities  of  life,  by  inculcating  virtue  and  ennobling 
that  which  is  best  in  man,  sentiment,  fails  of  its 
purpose,  whatever  it  may  do  for  the  mind.  For  the 
orthodox  Jew  who  observes  all  the  commandments 
of  the  law,  of  which  he  counts  as  many  prohibitions 
as  the  year  has  days  and  as  many  mandates  as  the 
body  has  members,  the  whole  of  life  was  holy,  sancti- 
fied by  observances  that  crowned  him  with  the  diadem 
of  priesthood.  For  the  Reform  Jew,  life  is  no  less 
hoi}7  because  it  is  vocal  with  duty,  and  God  is  in  every 
joy  and  grief,  in  every  trial  and  temptation,  to  prove 
his  character  and  manhood.  Ought,  then,  he  who  is 
to  bring  the  divine  message  of  comfort  and  blessing 
to  hearts  and  homes  in  affliction  and  happiness,  ought 
the  young  aspirant  to  the  ministry  not  learn  in  due 
time  to  unfold  these  deeper  powers  of  the  soul  with 
which  he  is  to  perform  his  holy  task  as  priest  and 
shepherd  of  his  flock  in  order  to  enable  him  to  offer 
healing  and  tonic  of  the  spirit  to  those  that  are  in 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  27 

trouble  and  woe?  There  must  be  a  religious  atmos- 
phere about  a  Jewish  seat  of  learning  which  gives 
warmth  to  the  heart  and  wings  to  the  emotional  nature 
of  man.  The  spirit  of  piety  and  reverence  must 
pervade  the  whole  mode  of  teaching.  What  was 
dear  and  sacred  to  the  fathers  must  still  be  treated 
with  tender  regard  and  reverence  by  us,  however 
obsolete  and  superstitious  the  practice  or  the  belief. 
The  broken  pieces  of  the  old  tablets  of  the  Law  were 
deposited  in  the  holy  ark  alongside  of  the  new,  the 
Rabbis  tell  us.  Our  young  reformers  too  often  labor 
under  the  great  shortcoming  that  they  were  not 
brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  religious  life  which 
derived  sanctity  from  its  many  rites  and  ceremonies, 
and  so  they  are  callous,  inclined  to  a  rationalism  which 
chills  the  heart  and  blunts  the  finer  tendrils  of  the 
soul.  Over  against  the  cold  intellectualism  which 
tends  to  undermine  reverence  for  authority,  faith 
and  the  longing  for  God  in  prayer,  so  natural  to  every 
child-like  soul,  we  must  institute  regular  religious 
exercises,  devotional  readings  and  other  modes  of 
spiritual  uplifting.  The  future  Jewish  minister  must 
learn  how  to  wing  the  soul  up  to  God  in  prayer. 
The  picture  of  Jonah,  the  prophet  of  God,  who  lies 
asleep  in  his  corner,  while  all  the  rest  kneel  in  prayer, 
each  before  his  God,  in  the  storm  that  sweeps  over 
the  sea,  is  not  a  very  flattering  one  to  the  Jew  of 
to-day. 

But  greater  than  piety  and  prayer  is  sincerity, 
uprightness  before  God  and  man.  As  the  ark  of  the 
covenant  was  inlaid  with  gold  from  within  and  with- 
out, so,  the  Rabbis  say,  should  every  Jewish  scholar 
or  teacher  be  of  pure  gold,  from  within  and  without, 


28  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


free  from  all  hypocrisy,  from  time-serving  or  man- 
pleasing.  Men  of  character  and  of  courage  of  opin- 
ion, of  steadfastness  and  sincerity  of  purpose,  do  we 
need  as  leaders  and  banner-bearers  of  truth,  men 
whose  souls  burn  with  the  fire  of  a  holy  conviction, 
so  that  as  "the  elect  ones  of  the  sons  of  Israel,"  they 
can  only  be  glorified  but  not  consumed  by  the  fire 
of  God,  because  there  is  but  the  pure  gold  of  principle 
and  no  dross  in  their  soul.  Yes,  the  Hebrew  Union 
College  should  not  only  be  a  seat  of  learning  but  a 
schoolhouse  for  religious,  social  and  civic  virtue;  it 
must  give  us  not  merely  wise  and  intelligent  leaders 
who  understand  the  requirements  of  the  time  and 
supply  the  needs  of  the  congregation,  but  men  of 
unbending  strength  of  character  and  truthfulness, 
God-fearing  men  who  hate  sin  and  show  their  inner 
calling  by  true  self-denial,  as  well  as  by  dignity  and 
comity. 

And  yet  one  feature,  hitherto  greatly  neglected, 
I  must  not  fail  to  mention.  Judaism  does  not,  like 
the  Hebrew,  "read  only  backward."  It  looks  for- 
ward to  the  future  and  wants  to  take  a  firm  grasp 
of  the  life  that  now  is  in  the  light  of  its  great  mission. 
All  the  knowledge  the  future  Rabbi  acquires  must  be 
subordinate  to  the  higher  task  of  practical  communal 
service  which  he  is  expected  to  assume.  He  must 
obtain  an  insight  into  social  science  in  order  to 
be  an  efficient  worker  for  the  common  good  in  this 
complex  life  of  ours.  Justice  is  to  Judaism  more 
than  love;  its  work  for  the  poor  and  needy  must  be 
done  on  the  principle  of  righteousness,  not  charity. 
The  study  of  sociology  and  the  science  of  charity 
are  as  indispensable  equipments  for  him  who  is  to 


A  JEWISH  INSTITUTION  OF  LEARNING  29 


be  the  spiritual  leader  of  a  congregation,  as  are  peda- 
gogics and  psychology  and  homiletics  to  him  who  is 
to  conduct  a  Sabbath-school  and  occupy  a  pulpit. 
Yet  here,  too,  a  culture  of  soul  and  the  fostering 
of  large  sympathies  condition  true  success.  And  all 
of  one  piece  the  golden  luminary  of  Jewish  learning 
and  life  must  be. 

Need  I  state  that  in  order  to  accomplish  all  this, 
nay,  to  pursue  these  aims,  something  more  is  required 
than  the  few  hours  allotted  to  the  student  of  the 
college  who  is  at  the  same  time  obliged  to  pursue 
his  course  of  studies  at  the  university?  Under  the 
present  conditions,  progress  of  the  college  is  simply 
excluded.  A  thorough  change  of  the  system  is 
peremptory.  "Out  of  the  valley  to  the  heights  of  a 
higher  mission"  must  be  the  watchword  of  the 
administration  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College. 

It  is  of  no  great  consequence,  under  the  present 
conditions,  how  many  young  men  shall  each  year 
go  forth  from  this  institution,  or  in  how  many  years 
they  may  be  fitted  out  for  their  holy  vocation.  One 
single  man  of  power,  with  a  lofty  conception  of  his 
calling,  one  single  individual  with  the  prophet's 
fire  in  his  soul  and  a  live  coal  from  God's  empyrean 
upon  his  lips,  one  to  whom  the  ministry  is  not  a 
"crown  for  his  own  aggrandizement  nor  an  axe  to 
dig  with,"  but  the  highest  mission  of  life,  because  he 
has  a  message  from  the  Lord  of  Hosts  to  bring  to  his 
people  and  his  time,  is  worth  more  than  a  dozen 
graduates  who  simply  wait  for  an  incumbency  to 
furnish  them  bread.  Oh,  that  the  hunger  for  the 
word  of  God,  the  craving  of  the  spirit  may  be  felt 
by  all  who  attend,  by  all  who  love  and  support  the 


30  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

college.  Oh,  that  especially  you,  people  of  Cincin- 
nati, loyal  to  your  tradition,  would  create  and  foster 
a  religious  atmosphere  around  the  college,  endow  it 
generously  and  give  us  the  best  of  your  sons  to  lend 
prestige  to  the  ministry! 

I  rejoice  to  think  that  American  Israel  has  two 
institutions  of  learning  which  hold  forth  the  promise 
of  imparting  to  Judaism  new  power,  new  light  and 
new  life:  the  Seminary  in  New  York,  new  and  full 
of  promise,  under  the  leadership  of  the  powerful 
personality  of  Schechter  and  enjoying  the  support  of 
princes  in  Israel,  princes  in  philanthropy  as  well  as 
in  wealth  and  influence;  and  ours,  a  democratic 
and  therefore  truly  American  institution  appealing 
to  all  Israelites  of  the  land  for  aid  and  counting  upon 
the  active  support  and  co-operation  of  all  the  rabbis 
and  scholars  who  champion  progress  and  reform  as 
well  as  learning.  It  glories  in  its  tradition  and  record, 
and  I  confidently  rely  upon  the  tried  and  tested  ser- 
vices of  my  associates  of  the  faculty  to  help  me  in 
bringing  the  Hebrew  Union  College  up  to  the  highest 
requirements  and  the  highest  standard  of  efficiency. 

Oh,  that  all  the  progressive  Jews  of  this  wide  land 
may  unite  to  make  the  sanctuary  of  the  Torah,  up- 
held by  the  shekalim  contributed  by  each  and  every 
Israelite,  a  center  from  which  life  and  light,  warmth  and 
power  flow  throughout  the  whole  body  of  American 
Israel,  uniting  and  fortifying  Judaism,  and  illumining 
and  conquering  the  world. 

And  may  the  grace  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon 
us,  and  establish  Thou  the  work  of  our  hands  upon 
us;  yea,  the  work  of  our  hands  establish  Thou  it! 
Amen. 


3. 


A  DAY  OF  PRECIOUS  MEMORIES  AND 
BRIGHT  HOPES.* 

I  CONGRATULATE  you  each  and  all  upon  witness- 
ing this  day  which  marks  a  new  era  in  the  history 
of  our  blessed  institution  and,  under  God's  guidance, 
in  the  history  of  Progressive  American  Judaism.  In 
the  words  of  Isaiah  (xxviii.  16),  I  heard  the  Lord 
God  speak  to  us:  "Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foun- 
dation a  tried  stone,  a  precious  corner-stone  of  sure 
foundation;  he  who  hath  faith  shall  not  be  in  haste." 
A  double  message  this  auspicious  event  has  for  us: 
Precious  memories  and  bright  hopes. 

An  exquisite  story  is  told  in  the  Midrash  of  King 
Solomon :  When  he  had  finished  his  gorgeous  Temple 
on  Mount  Zion  and  solemnly  dedicated  it  to  the 
service  of  the  Most  High,  the  mighty  gates  would 
not  open  nor  would  the  fire  from  heaven  descend  to 
kindle  the  sacrifices  upon  the  altar,  until  he  had  sent 
up  to  the  heavenly  throne  the  petition  voiced  in  the 
122d  Psalm:  "O  Lord,  for  my  father  David's  sake 
let  me,  Thine  anointed,  not  be  put  to  shame!  For 
the  sake  of  him  who  gave  no  sleep  to  his  eyes  nor 
slumber  to  his  eyelids  until  he  had  found  the  place 
worthy  to  be  the  dwelling  place  of  Thy  majesty,  let 

*Address  at  the  laying  of  the  corner  stone  of  the  new  Hebrew 
Union  College  Buildings,  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  April  25, 
1911. 


32  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Thy  glory  now  appear  to  us!"  So  must  we,  while 
laying  the  corner-stones  to  the  new  college  buildings, 
recall  in  grateful  remembrance  and  reverential  appre- 
ciation the  years  of  heroic  struggling  and  striving, 
the  persistent  aim,  the  lofty  ambition  and  the  tri- 
umphant achievement  of  the  deathless  master, 
Isaac  Mayer  Wise,  and  all  the  great  things  he  and 
his  illustrious  compeers,  the  great  Reform  pioneers, 
and  all  his  co-workers  did  for  the  promotion  of  the 
Jewish  faith  and  Jewish  learning,  and  particularly 
all  that  he  accomplished  for  the  training  of  efficient 
and  zealous  teachers  and  leaders  for  American  Israel 
in  those  halls  of  learning  hallowed  by  the  memory 
of  his  precious  life  work.  And  as  we  today  anticipate 
in  gladsome  strains  the  approaching  day  that  tells 
us  to  "enlarge  the  place  of  the  Torah's  tent  and 
stretch  forth  the  curtains  of  the  seat  of  learning 
that  it  may  spread  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,"  the 
longed-for  moment  that  bids  us  exchange  the 
narrow  quarters  of  the  old  building  for  these  spacious 
grounds  on  the  city's  heights  kissed  by  the  early  sun, 
where  we  may  imbibe  new  health  and  new  light  from 
the  purer  air  and  the  expanded  horizon,  and  the 
thrill  of  creation's  joy  from  field  and  forest  round 
about,  does  not  the  echo  of  the  ancient  song  come 
to  us  saying:  All  Beer  Enu  lah,  "Rise  up,  O  well 
of  living  waters,  sing  unto  it!" — the  well  which  Isaac 
Mayer  Wise  hath  digged  with  his  staff  of  leadership 
and  the  nobles  of  the  people,  the  princes  of  learning 
at  his  side!  Rise  up  from  Mattanah  to  Nahaliel 
and  from  Nahaliel  to  Bamoth — from  the  valley  to 
the  sun-lit  heights,  from  the  lowland  to  the  hilltop 


PRECIOUS  MEMORIES  AND  BRIGHT  HOPES        33 


that  overlooks  the  wide  land,  so  as  to  quench  the 
thirst  of  the  thousands  of  truth-seeking  men  near 
and  far  and  render  the  Torah,  the  gift  of  Israel's  genius, 
the  inheritance  of  the  nations  round  about! 

Yes,  upwards  and  onwards,  O  American  Israel! 
On  the  path  which  thy  Reform  pioneers,  the  regener- 
ators of  the  faith,  have  mapped  out  for  thee!  Up- 
ward and  onward  with  the  banner  of  light  and  of 
religious  progress  towards  Israel's  great  goal  on 
humanity's  Zion  and  towards  the  realization  of 
America's  highest  ideals! 

Thanks  to  the  generosity  and  princely  munificence 
of  our  friends,  we  are  today  laying  the  corner-stones 
of  the  two  magnificent  structures  that  are  to  stand 
forth  as  monuments  to  Israel's  accumulated  wisdom 
and  to  Judaism's  everlasting  faith,  two  sanctuaries 
of  the  Torah,  the  Library  and  the  Schoolhouse  of 
the  Hebrew  Union  College,  reminding  us  of  the 
two  shrines  carried  before  the  Israelites  in  the  wilder- 
ness, the  one  containing  the  bones  of  Joseph,  symbol 
of  loyalty  to  the  past,  the  other  holding  the  tablets 
of  the  Law,  symbol  of  the  faith  in  the  ever-living  God. 
Loyalty  to  our  great  past  and  a  wide  outlook  into 
the  future!  This  be  our  watchword. 

Loyalty  to  the  pastl  This  is  the  thought  suggested 
by  the  corner-stone  laying  ceremony,  as  we  deposit 
the  precious  records  of  the  past  beneath  the  struc- 
ture. Oh,  how  precious  are  the  records  of  the  life 
of  the  Jew!  How  full  of  grandeur,  how  unique  the 
history  and  the  literature  of  the  Jewish  people! 
Yet  what  invested  them  with  such  all-surpassing 
interest  and  charm?  Wherein  consists  the  special 


34  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

value,  the  singular  greatness  attached  to  the  sayings 
and  teachings  of  Israel's  seers  and  singers  and  sages 
and  masters,  to  the  tales  and  traditions  of  its  good 
and  wise  men  and  women  hoarded  up  in  its  written 
volumes  or  in  the  memories  of  the  people?  Why 
do  we  treasure  them  more  highly  than  all  the  price- 
less crown  jewels  of  the  world?  Why  feed  our  minds 
on  them,  enrich  our  souls?  Why  do  they  inspire 
our  lives  more  than  other  human  products?  There 
is  but  one  answer  to  this:  Religion  is  the  life  of  the 
Jew.  Religion  and  religion  alone  preserved  and  kept 
the  Jew  alive  all  through  the  ages  and  the  lands. 
The  Torah,  not  mere  Law  but  Learning  and  serious 
search  for  truth,  became  his  fount  of  life  and  light 
and  of  continuous  rejuvenation.  Not  the  Jewish 
People,  which  relapsed  again  and  again  all  through 
the  centuries  into  idolatrous  and  superstitious  prac- 
tices and  beliefs,  constitutes  the  soul  and  essence  of 
Judaism,  but  the  God  on  high  who  redeemed  it  ever 
anew,  forcing  it,  as  it  were,  into  His  service  as  witness 
and  herald  of  His  glory;  the  God  of  Abraham,  the 
first  world-missionary;  the  God  who  spoke  out  of 
the  fire  of  Sinai  to  Moses  and  made  Isaiah  and 
Jonah  preachers  to  the  wide  world  long  before  Church 
and  Mosque  arose;  the  God  of  truth  for  the  glorifi- 
cation of  whose  name  myriads  of  Jews  like  unto 
Akiba  offered  up  their  life-blood,  and  to  the  power 
and  higher  knowledge  of  whose  nature  thousands 
like  unto  Maimonides  and  Gabirol  gave  their  brain 
and  their  strength;  the  God  of  humanity  whose 
covenant  is  to  bind  the  nations  and  the  races  into 
one  bond  of  brotherhood.  This  is  the  corner-stone 


and  pinnacle  of  Judaism.  This  is  the  precious 
corner-stone  upon  which  we  build  the  College  and 
the  future  of  American  Israel. 

Yet,  as  this  God  of  ours  rose  before  the  ever- 
advancing  spirit  of  seer  and  sage  to  ever  loftier 
heights  of  vision,  as  Israel's  religious  truth  ever 
progressed  with  the  mental  and  spiritual  development 
of  the  people  under  the  influence  of  the  various 
civilizations  it  came  in  touch  with,  and  through 
assimilation  of  the  best  ideas  and  highest  ideals  of 
each  phase  of  universal  culture  it  participated  in, 
so  shall  we  call  all  the  knowledge  of  our  day,  the 
results  of  every  new  research,  the  splendor  and  beauty 
of  every  new  thought  and  world-view  into  our  service 
to  clarify,  to  deepen  and  to  enrich  our  ancient  faith 
to  render  it,  as  Scripture  says,  "our  wisdom  and  our 
understanding  in  the  eyes  of  the  nations,"  never 
resting  until  Judaism  has  attained  the  topmost 
summit  of  philosophy  and  culture,  and  is  recognized 
by  all  as  the  loftiest  of  truths. 

We  need  not  be  afraid  of  historical  and  critical 
inquiry  which  casts  its  search-light  upon  Bible  and 
Talmud,  upon  every  law  and  ceremony,  upon  every 
custom  and  conception  of  bygone  ages,  upon  the 
whole  process  of  development  of  religious  and  social 
life  within  and  without  the  sphere  of  Jew  and  Judaism. 
Deep  down  in  the  past  the  corner-stone  of  Judaism  is 
laid  by  the  Bible  which  begins  not  with  the  first 
Jew,  but  with  the  first  God-seeking  man,  and  so  does 
Judaism's  outlook  extend  to  the  furthermost  ends  of 
the  earth,  to  the  highest  goal  of  humanity.  This 
civilization  of  ours  is  not  Christian,  as  the  Jewish 


36  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

nationalist  in  common  with  the  church  maintains. 
It  is  flesh  of  our  flesh,  bone  of  our  bone  and  spirit 
of  our  spirit.  It  is  built  on  Sinai's  rock,  fertilized 
by  our  martyr's  blood,  fructified  by  our  thinker's 
brain,  nay,  centered  upon  Israel's  monotheistic 
truth,  whatever  of  pagan  folly  and  medieval  bar- 
barism may  still  cluster  around  it.  Though  the  Jew 
wore,  and  still  wears,  the  martyr's  crown  of  thorns, 
he  marched  as  conqueror  through  the  lands,  holding 
the  lamp  of  reason,  the  torch  of  science  in  his  hand  to 
become  the  preceptor,  the  liberator,  the  humanizer 
of  Christendom.  And  his  day  of  triumph  is  ap- 
proaching. His  sublime  yet  simple  faith  is  fast  con- 
quering a  reluctant  world.  Never  before  did  pro- 
gressive Judaism  have  such  glorious  opportunities, 
such  mighty  possibilities  as  it  has  to-day.  The  very 
soul  of  modern  thought,  the  idea  of  evolution  leads 
unerringly  to  the  establishment  of  Israel's  truth  in 
the  heart  of  the  thinking  world.  The  cry  for  right- 
eousness and  justice  that  comes  from  all  parts  of  so- 
ciety to-day,  in  opposition  to  the  unequal  and  un- 
stable principle  of  love,  points  to  the  ultimate  victory 
of  prophetic  Judaism.  Occidental  civilization  is 
coming  more  and  more  towards  our  mode  of  thinking, 
towards  the  belief  in  Israel's  God  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness. And  should  we  now  leave  our  post,  sur- 
render our  mission  as  priests  and  heralds  of  human- 
ity's God  to  withdraw  into  a  world  of  our  own,  nar- 
rowed in  by  views  of  medievalism,  shunning  the 
free  and  untrammelled  contact  with  Occidental 
culture  which  alone  gave  freedom  to  man  and  dignity 
to  woman? 


PRECIOUS  MEMORIES  AND  BRIGHT  HOPES       37 

Forward  or  Backward?  A  living  faith  or  deaden- 
ing formalism?  Sincerity  of  conviction  or  intellectual 
dishonesty  in  our  synagogal  worship  and  in  our 
theological  studies?  This  has  again  become  the  issue 
to-day,  and  we  of  the  Reform  wing  are  in  no  fear  as 
to  the  outcome.  True,  we  are  no  longer  in  the 
majority,  as  we  were  when  our  College  was  founded. 
All  the  more  necessary  that  we  stand  firmly  together. 
Reform  has  been,  and  still  is,  Judaism's  saving  power. 
"Not  by  might  nor  by  numerical  strength,  but  by 
My  spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts,"  has  ever  been 
Israel's  watchword. 

We  need  but  a  center  and  focus  of  light,  a  power- 
house of  the  spirit  to  give  us  men  of  faith,  of  prin- 
ciple and  of  firm  conviction,  a  school-house  whose 
windows  are  open  to  the  light  of  truth,  of  knowledge 
and  of  research  that  streams  in  from  all  sides  to 
make  each  discovery  a  stepping-stone  toward  the 
great  future,  promise  and  pledge  of  the  day  when 
all  over  the  earth  Israel's  God  will  be  One  and  His 
name  be  One. 

Here  in  closest  proximity  to  the  University  of 
Cincinnati  our  College  shall,  with  God's  help,  work 
hand  in  hand  with  the  city's  institutions  of  learning 
to  become  an  enlightening  force  for  all,  a  high  tower 
of  learning  to  herald  forth  the  harmony  of  reason  and 
faith,  a  bulwark  of  Progressive  Judaism  and  an 
arsenal  of  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  God  for  all  men. 

So  may  here  rise  the  fortress  of  our  faith  with  the 
banner  of  Reform  Judaism  unfurled.  So  may,  with 
the  erecting  of  this  monument  to  Israel's  everlasting 
truth,  a  great  revival  be  wrought  in  our  camp,  a 


38  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

consolidation  of  all  progressive  forces  of  American 
Judaism,  a  renewed  sense  of  our  great  responsibility 
and  duty  as  God's  elect.  And  particularly  let  us, 
fellow-teachers  and  students,  at  this  solemn  moment, 
with  consecrated  hearts,  lay  the  foundation  of  our 
sacred  heritage,  the  principles  of  our  faith  deep  down 
in  our  innermost  being,  that  we  ourselves  may  be- 
come disciples  of  the  Lord,  teachers  and  guides  of 
the  people,  builders  of  humanity's  temple  filled 
with  the  spirit  of  God  and  the  valor  of  true  man- 
hood as  Jews  and  as  Americans.  And  may  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  be  on  our  work,  and  the  work  of  our  hands 
establish  Thou  it,  O  God,  and  speed  it  with  Thy 
blessing.  Amen! 


THE  PURPOSE  AND  MISSION  OF  THE 
HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE.* 

ONE  of  the  striking  episodes  of  the  history  of 
early  Israel  brings  before  us  Balaam,  the  heathen 
seer,  as  he  goes  forth  to  hurl  his  fiercest  curses  upon 
the  young  nation  that  had  just  emerged  from  bondage 
to  freedom;  yet  no  sooner  does  he  from  the  lofty 
hilltop,  where  he  had  taken  his  stand,  behold  Israel's 
tribes  encamped  alongside  of  each  other,  held  to- 
gether by  an  unseen  force,  than  there  came  upon 
him  the  spirit  of  God,  and  he  burst  out  into  a  song 
of  praise  echoing  through  the  coming  centuries: 
"How  beautiful  are  thy  tents,  O  Jacob!  thy 
tabernacles,  O  Israel!"  And  here  our  sages  remark: 
Before  his  mental  vision  loomed  up  the  school  houses 
and  synagogs  with  which  Judaism's  genius  makes 
its  world-conquering  march  through  the  lands  and 
the  ages.  Of  this  wondrous  story  I  am  reminded  at 
this  glorious  sight  of  the  assembled  representatives 
of  progressive  American  Israel  from  all  parts  of  the 
land,  of  the  various  cities,  who  have  come  in  imposing 
numbers  to  participate  in  the  dedication  of  this 
gorgeous  new  home  of  the  Torah,  and  thus  to  mani- 
fest their  interest  and  their  pride  in  the  sacred  work 

*Address  delivered  at  the  dedication  of  the  new  Hebrew  Union 
College  Building,  January,  1913. 


40  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

of  promulgating  and  perpetuating  Israel's  eternal 
truths,  to  which  these  magnificent  structures,  the 
school  house  and  the  library  are  being  consecrated 
to-day  in  due  solemnity.  You,  the  friends  and  bene- 
factors of  the  college,  have  given  us  new  inspiration, 
a  new  impetus  and  incentive  in  our  efforts  on  behalf 
of  the  Jewish  faith  and  Jewish  learning,  by  giving 
us  these  spacious  halls,  brimful  of  light  and  salubrious 
air,  on  these  elevated  grounds,  where  the  view  ex- 
tends far  over  hill  and  valley,  over  field  and  forest, 
to  enlarge  the  mental  horizon.  And  in  congratu- 
lating you  upon  the  proud  monument  you  have 
erected  here,  an  ornament  to  the  city  and  a  credit 
to  American  Israel,  I  offer  our  thanks  to  you  in 
the  familiar  Hebrew  words: 

"May  your  powers  to  do  good  ever  increase!" 
I  am  especially  gratified  to  have  my  honored 
friend,  the  illustrious  president  of  the  Jewish  The- 
ological Seminary  of  New  York,  Dr.  Schechter, 
with  us  to  participate  in  our  dedication  ceremony 
and  thus  give  evidence  of  the  spirit  of  amity  and 
fellowship  that  should  ever  exist  among  scholars 
who  are  to  follow  the  maxim:  Out  of  all  dissent  in 
views,  mutual  appreciation  and  friendship  must 
emanate  in  the  end,  if  truth  be  the  common  aim  and 
object.  And  may  I  not  repeat  here  what  I  said  when 
participating  in  the  dedication  of  the  New  York 
Seminary:  There  is  room  and  necessity  for  both 
schools,  the  Conservative  and  the  Progressive,  for, 
as  it  was  said  of  the  Schools  of  Hillel  and  Shammai: 
"The  words  of  the  living  God  are  in  both."  We  may 


MISSION  OF  THE  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE       41 


advance  along  different  lines  and  under  different 
standards,  yet  in  front  of  Mount  Sinai,  in  the  great 
principles  of  Judaism,  all  Israel  is  one. 

Glorious  and  admirable  as  are  the  achievements 
of  American  Israel  everywhere  when  the  rearing  of 
majestic  houses  of  worship  is  asked  for,  or  the  large 
institutions  of  philanthropy  demand  great  sacrifices, 
yet  the  planning  and  planting  of  a  Rabbinical  School 
started  by  the  master  genius  of  Dr.  Wise  forty  years 
ago,  met  but  slowly  and  scantily  with  the  encourage- 
ment and  warm  support  and  appreciation  to  which 
it  was  entitled.  At  last  I  see  the  hope  and  anticipa- 
tion I  voiced  in  my  inaugural  address  as  Dr.  Wise's 
successor  realized:  "From  the  valley  below  to  the 
sunlit  heights,  side  by  side  with  the  great  educational 
institutions  of  the  city."  This  was  the  burden  of 
my  message  nine  and  a  half  years  ago.  In  giving 
our  college  its  fitting  site  on  these  lofty  and  beautiful 
grounds  you  have  not  merely  put  a  precious  finishing 
crown  upon  the  monumental  work  of  its  sainted 
founder.  You  have  raised  the  very  vocation  of  the 
rabbi  arid  the  position  of  the  Rabbinical  School  in 
the  estimate  of  the  people,  who  are  more  or  less 
inclined  to  regard  the  same  as  a  mere  professional 
pursuit  of  the  rabbinical  career  in  which  the  com- 
munity is  little  concerned.  You  have  indeed  proven 
yourselves  to  be  worthy  heirs  of  "the  men  of  the 
great  Assembly,"  who  earned  the  title  of  greatness 
because,  we  are  told,  they  restored  the  Torah  to  its 
pristine  glory.  Well,  then,  the  marvelous  history  of 
the  Hebrew  Union  College  has  been  unrolled  to  us 


42  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


with  stirring  eloquence  by  the  worthy  and  genial 
son  of  the  great  founder,  Rabbi  Jonah  Wise.  I  hear 
the  message  for  the  new  era  that  has  opened  for  the 
college  in  its  splendid  new  home,  in  the  words  of 
Deutero-Isaiah  "Behold,  the  former  things  have 
come  to  pass  and  new  things  do  I  announce.  Sing 
unto  the  Lord  a  new  song."  Three  leading  thoughts 
are  suggested  to  me  by  these  monumental  structures: 
The  loftiness  of  Judaism's  truth,  the  broadness  of 
Judaism's  scope  and  the  largeness  of  Judaism's 
view  and  outlook. 

Whenever  I  ascend  these  hills  and  stairs  leading 
up  to  this  sanctuary  of  the  Torah,  I  seem  to  hear  the 
call  that  came  to  the  prophet:  "Go  forth  and  stand 
on  the  hilltop  in  the  presence  of  God,"  and  the  voice 
resounds  in  my  ear :  "On  the  mountain  heights  God  is 
seen."  There  is  a  decided  tendency  in  our  enlightened 
age  to  lay  all  the  stress  on  doing  works  of  love  and 
philanthropy  in  slums  and  settlements  and  underrate 
that  for  which  our  faith  and  Torah  ever  stood,  creating 
heroes  and  martyrs  such  as  no  other  religion  or  race 
could  ever  glory  in,  the  power  and  sublime  grandeur  of 
truth.  A  little  over  three  years  ago,  Dr.  Eliot,  the  ex- 
President  of  Harvard  University,  created  a  stir 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world  by  an  address 
in  which  he  declared  Christianity,  with  its  dogmas,  to 
be  antiquated,  accentuating  instead  the  need  of  a  new 
religion  in  which  the  deity  stands  for  compassion 
and  helpful  love,  whereas  the  age  demands  as  a  new 
virtue  the  passion  for  truth.  Evidently  the  great  leader 
of  thought  in  America  failed  to  take  due  notice  of 


MISSION  OF  THE  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE       43 


the  views  and  teachings  of  Judaism,  whose  history 
is  nothing  but  a  continuous  and  unique  display  of 
its  passion  for  truth.  From  patriarch  to  prophet, 
from  seer  and  singer  to  sage,  from  saintly  master  to 
martyr  and  mystic,  throughout  all  the  centuries  of 
Jewish  history  there  goes  an  ever  unstilled  longing 
and  searching,  suffering  and  sighing  for  truth  as 
the  Seal  of  God.  By  the  thousands  the  Jewish 
people  gave  their  souls,  and  by  tens  of  thousands  the 
sweat  of  their  brow,  for  the  truth  of  their  only  One 
God.  And  in  this  zealous  and  keen  pursuit  of  truth 
the  Jewish  teachers  and  scholars  in  Alexandria, 
Palestine  and  Babylonia,  in  Arabia  and  Spain  ever 
strove  to  liberate  the  mind  from  the  shackles  of  the 
letter  and  thus  deepen,  sublimate  and  spiritualize 
the  faith  so  as  to  reconcile  religion  and  reason,  the 
stern  law  of  Moses  and  the  lucid  philosophy  of 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  and  render  them  one  light  of 
divine  truth.  Not  a  new  religion,  but  a  constant  re- 
newal and  rejuvenation  of  religion  is  the  demand  of 
ever  progressive,  ever  expansive  Judaism.  To  truth, 
then,  the  lofty  aim  and  ideal  to  which  the  human  mind 
ever  aspires,  to  which  religion,  philosophy  and  science 
will  ever  beckon  and  lead,  to  God,  the  Fountain- 
head  of  all  truth,  whose  majesty  ever  walked  with 
Israel  to  dwell  in  His  school  houses  and  synagogs, 
we  dedicate  this  institution  of  learning,  this  new  home 
of  the  Torah.  For,  to  us  the  Torah  is  not  the  im- 
movable, immutable  Law  as  typified  by  the  stony 
figure  of  Moses  in  Sargent's  fresco  on  the  walls  of 
the  Boston  Library.  To  us  the  Torah  is  the  Jewish 


44  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


lore  in  its  continuous  process  of  growth  and  evolu- 
tion, expounded,  interpreted  and  revealed  ever  anew 
to  become  a  vital  force,  a  living  truth,  a  living  faith 
and  hope  for  the  age,  as  the  Midrash  says:  "Like  a 
degree  of  the  King  fresh  from  his  hand  and  mouth." 
And  because  it  is  the  handwriting  of  God  in  many 
languages,  our  studies  are  not  confined  to  the  Hebrew 
and  its  kindred  Aramaic  tongue.  As  the  Ten  Words 
of  Sinai  flashed  forth,  according  to  our  rabbis,  in 
seventy  tongues  of  fire  to  reach  the  seventy  nations 
on  earth,  so  do  we  want  Judaism  to  be  studied  in 
all  its  phases  and  epochs,  in  all  national  and  religious 
spheres  that  have  caught  echoes  from  Sinai's  thunders 
and  flashes  from  Sinai's  lightnings.  In  fact,  we  must 
so  reconstruct  the  past  and  translate  it  into  terms 
of  modern  historical,  philosophical  and  psychological 
research  as  to  see  in  Sinai  the  ladder  leading  up  to 
heaven,  or,  to  use  a  striking  expression  of  Geiger, 
"to  see  God  rising  from  the  dark  earth  to  the  serene 
heavenly  realm  of  the  spirit."  We  must,  like  Balaam, 
look  down  from  the  lofty  hilltop,  the  pinnacle  of 
historic  research,  to  follow  the  groping  and  climbing 
of  men  and  ages  in  order  "to  see  the  truth  sprout 
forth  from  the  earth,"  and  then  behold  God  on  high, 
in  His  sublime  majesty,  with  the  eyes  of  faith,  with 
the  positive  conviction  of  a  sincere  believer  face 
to  face.  We  must  have  a  positive  theological  system, 
such  as  Dr.  Wise  and  Dr.  Einhorn,  among  the  Re- 
formers, and  Dr.  Schechter  among  the  Conserva- 
tives, have  ever  insisted  upon:  to  offer  leader  and 
people,  scholar  and  student,  what  the  polar  star  is 


MISSION  OF  THE  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE       45 

to  the  mariner,  the  guiding  principle,  the  source  of 
inspiration  and  aspiration,  of  solace  and  strength 
in  life's  struggles  and  strivings. 

But  all  theory  is  worthless  without  impelling  to 
practice.  Israel's  God  is  a  God  of  life,  and  the  Torah 
is  nothing  if  not  the  law  of  life,  not  for  the  Jew  only, 
but  for  man,  a  life  of  justice  and  righteousness  for 
men  of  all  classes  and  circles  and  in  all  spheres  of 
activity.  This  is  what  Judaism  on  the  heights  of 
prophetic  teaching  ever  pointed  to,  a  religion  that 
touches  life  at  every  point,  broad  as  the  earth  and 
large  as  the  human  horizon.  From  Sinai's  Law  to 
the  seer  of  Zion,  through  Bible  and  Talmud,  through 
all  system  of  ethics  and  sayings  of  wisdom  of  the 
Jew,  there  runs  like  a  mighty  torrent  the  cry  for 
justice. 

The  first  and  the  last  thing  the  Jew  ever  had,  and 
still  has  to  battle  for  as  the  soldier  of  God  and  the 
champion  of  man,  is  righteousness.  For  2,000  years 
the  world  has  been  misled  by  the  New  Testament 
accentuation  of  love  at  the  expense  of  justice,  and 
thus  the  very  foundation  of  society  and  individual 
manhood,  the  basis  of  all  moral  and  social  welfare 
has  been  perverted,  if  not  subverted,  so  that  now  the 
great  cry  shakes  the  earth  from  center  to  circum- 
ference: Give  us  justice!  Establish  righteousness  in 
the  relation  of  man  to  man  which  love,  with  its 
partiality  and  insincerity,  will  never  readjust.  It  is 
this  principle  of  justice  that  we,  as  exponents  of 
Judaism,  must  inculcate  with  ever  increasing  force. 
We  need  no  Christian  sociologist  or  moralist  to  teach 


46  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


us  wherein  true  ethics  consists,  or  what  a  life  of  social 
service  means.  The  message  of  social  justice,  voiced 
by  our  great  prophets  with  a  vehemence  of  storm 
and  strokes  of  hammer  that  shatter  the  rock,  is 
echoed  through  our  Haggadah  and  Halakah,  and  rever- 
berates even  in  a  Karl  Marx  and  Ferdinand  Lasalle 
of  our  days.  It  is  Judaism's  teaching  for  high  and 
low,  for  rich  and  poor,  for  Jew  and  Gentile.  And  to 
this  God  of  Justice  and  Righteousness  we  dedicate 
this  house  of  the  Torah,  so  that  freedom  and  light 
should  come  upon  it  from  all  sides,  and  life  and 
liberty,  justice  and  peace  radiate  from  it  to  enrich, 
to  bless  and  to  sanctify  the  life  of  Israel  and  humanity. 
And  finally,  the  third  idea  I  take  from  the  struc- 
tures reared  here  to  offer  us  such  a  grand,  wide  out- 
look is  largeness  of  view  and  brightness  of  prospects 
for  the  future.  It  was  not  a  mere  phrase  to  rouse 
the  sneer  of  antagonists,  it  was  a  great  fundamental 
principle  accentuated  by  Dr.  Wise,  when  he  made 
American  Judaism  his  watchword  and  battlecry. 
He  only  emphasized  what  all  the  Reform  leaders 
had  in  mind,  that  the  Jew  participating  in  our  Occi- 
dental civilization  as  loyal  and  patriotic  citizen  has 
not,  nor  should  he  have,  the  feeling  of  being  in  dis- 
persion, in  Galuth.  God's  majesty  does  not  forever 
dwell  in  the  holy  land,  nor  in  the  temple  of  Moriah 
solely.  Wherever  Israel  went,  God  went  with  him, 
and  while  our  face  is  ever  turned  in  reverential  awe 
toward  the  rising  sun,  whence  we  started  on  our  world 
mission,  we  have  learned  from  history  that  West- 
ward wends  the  course  of  civilization's  empire. 


MISSION  OF  THE  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE        47 


And  America  is  the  land  destined  to  unite  by  its 
mighty  grasp  of  friendship  and  peace  the  races,  the 
creeds,  yea,  the  nations  of  the  world.  America,  with 
her  largeness  of  territory  and  of  life's  resources  and 
views,  has  broadened,  and  is  ever  broadening,  the 
views  of  mankind.  Her  spirit  of  democracy  has  made 
the  Jew  not  merely  more  liberal-hearted  and  liberal- 
minded  than  the  average  European  Jew  is;  she  has 
enhanced  his  love  and  zeal  for  a  common-sense  re- 
ligion, for  greater  independence  and  a  more  outspoken 
individuality  of  man  and  for  a  higher  idealism  in 
woman.  Thus  American  Judaism  has  become  a 
liberalizing  force  in  our  entire  social  and  national 
life,  and  its  influence  is  making  itself  felt  more  and 
more,  even  in  England  and  Germany  to-day. 

And,  casting  our  glance  over  the  entire  modern 
civilization  with  its  trend  of  thought,  what  is  all 
scientific  and  philosophical  research,  what  the  world- 
revolutionizing  discoveries  and  inventions,  the  divings 
and  delvings  into  the  beliefs  and  writings  of  a  hoary 
past,  the  peering  and  prying  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  soul  and  the  realms  of  the  unseen,  but  the  prayer- 
ful cry  like  unto  that  of  Moses:  "O  Lord,  let  me  see 
Thy  glory!"?  And  do  not  the  concentrated  efforts  of 
nations  and  empires  toward  the  betterment  of 
life's  conditions,  the  enlarged  sympathies  and  the 
elevated  standards  of  humanity,  in  spite  of  all  bru- 
tality and  carnage,  in  spite  of  all  class  and  race 
hatred,  persecution  and  prejudice,  point  to  the  reali- 
zation of  the  great  vision  of  our  prophets  of  the  time 
when  the  great  Jewish  principle  of  the  unity  of  God 


48  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

and  the  unity  of  mankind  will  be  established  in  all 
minds  and  hearts? 

We  see  the  day  dawning  when  our  age  of  restless 
searching  and  seeking  will  learn  to  bow  in  awe  before 
Israel's  Only  One;  when  out  of  the  great  melting  pot 
of  religions  and  races  the  Jew  will  come  forth  as  the 
banner-bearer  of  a  faith  which,  as  it  has  shaped  the 
world's  actions  and  hopes  to  a  large  extent  in  the 
past,  shall  become  the  corner-stone  of  civilization 
in  the  future,  rendering  its  truth  and  justice  the 
salvation  of  the  nations  and  the  bulwark  of  humanity. 

In  the  symbolic  language  of  the  rabbis,  the  reali- 
zation of  the  great  dream  of  the  prophets  of  the  end 
of  history  means  that  the  Divine  Hand  that  shapes 
the  destiny  of  the  nations  will  pile  hilltop  .upon 
hilltop,  and  mountain  peak  upon  mountain  peak,  to 
form  the  groundwork  for  Zion  in  order  to  have  the 
mountain  of  the  Lord  established  on  the  top  of  all 
the  mountains.  That  is  to  say,  the  lofty  ideals  ol 
all  lands  and  civilizations  must  be  combined  into 
one  great  consummation  of  all  human  endeavors 
to  form  the  basis  for  Israel's  ideal  of  truth,  justice, 
holiness  and  peace,  the  ideal  of  all  ideals. 

In  view  of  this  sublime  mission,  Judaism  needs 
pulpits  and  propagandists  of  large  vision  and  mighty 
intellectual  and  spiritual  power,  and,  above  all,  a 
power-house  of  the  spirit,  a  light-house  of  knowledge 
that  reaches  far  out  into  the  life  work  of  the  nations, 
an  academy  of  learning  which  turns  out  men  of  wis- 
dom and  knowledge,  men  of  principle  and  presever- 
ance,  of  fortitude  and  firmness,  men  buoyed  up  by 


MISSION  OF  THE  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE        49 

the  lofty  ideals  of  the  sage  and  seer  of  yore,  by  the 
heroism  of  a  strong  conviction  and  by  profound  love 
and  zeal  for  God,  for  Israel  and  for  humanity. 

Great  things,  then,  have  you  done  here — a  real 
work  of  Kiddush  ha  Shem,  of  glorification  of  God's 
name.  Yet  these  very  grounds  here  speak  louder 
than  words  can  of  what  is  yet  to  be  done  for  the 
maintenance,  the  expansion  and  further  develop- 
ment of  this  institution.  You  must  hold  up  our 
hands.  You  must  continue  to  bestow  your  great 
generosity  upon  our  college  and  manifest  your  in- 
terest in  its  steady  growth  in  numerical  and  spiritual 
power  and  influence.  You  must  complete  the  chain 
of  our  buildings  here  by  adding  to  the  two  proud 
buildings  the  dormitory  so  urgently  needed  for  the 
physical  and  moral  welfare  of  our  students.  You 
must  aid  us  in  enlarging  the  scope  of  our  work  by 
endowing  chairs  for  the  various  branches  of  Jewish 
learning,  for  Hellenistic  and  New  Testament  Research, 
for  Sociology  and  Philanthropy,  and  increasing  the 
number  of  scholarships  for  the  encouragement  of 
our  promising  young  men.  Thus  we  may  look  for- 
ward with  confidence  and  bright  hope  into  the  future 
and  anticipate  the  triumph  of  our  great  cause. 

To  Judaism,  then,  to  Progressive  American  Ju- 
daism with  ite  lofty  ideals,  we  dedicate  this  college 
building,  to  the  promulgation  and  perpetuation  of 
Israel's  truths,  to  the  elevation  of  human  nature,  to 
the  promotion  of  justice  and  righteousness  on  earth, 
to  the  vindication  of  the  name  and  faith  of  the  Jew, 
to  the  glorification  of  the  eternal  God,  the  Father  of 


50  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


mankind,  we  dedicate  this  house  as  a  temple  of 
divine  knowledge  and  wisdom,  and  this  chapel  as 
its  Holy  of  Holies.  May  the  Shekinah  ever  rest 
here  to  fill  the  soul  of  each  student  and  teacher  with 
the  fire  of  holy  enthusiasm  for  truth  and  justice,  and 
with  the  spirit  of  reverence  and  awe  for  whatever 
is  holy  and  good.  Let  light  stream  forth  from  the 
treasure-house  of  Israel's  literature  to  illumine  the 
eyes  and  ennoble  the  souls  of  all  who  enter.  May  we 
all  be  consecrated  anew  to  the  service  of  God  and 
man  as  priests  of  the  Most  High!  Amen. 


5. 


ISAAC  M.  WISE,  OR  THE  HEROIC  QUALITIES 
OF  THE  GOD-CHOSEN  LEADER.* 

THE  great  men  of  history,  the  heroes  of  mankind, 
says  Carlyle,  show  us  in  what  they  were  or  did 
the  possibilities  and  potentialities  of  our  own  nature. 
In  order  to  worthily  commemorate  the  life  of  a  great 
master,  it  behooves  us,  therefore,  to  single  out  those 
qualities  in  him  which  strike  a  responsive  chord  in 
our  souls  to  make  us  aspire  to  the  same  high  ideal 
and  shape  our  lives  after  the  pattern  presented  by 
them.  In  this  spirit  can  the  Founder's  Day  be  best 
celebrated  at  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  the  most 
enduring  monument  of  the  achievements  of  Isaac 
M.  Wise,  a  source  of  light  and  of  blessing  for  all  gener- 
ations to  come.  Which  are  then,  I  ask,  the  eminent 
qualities  of  the  illustrious  founder  of  this  blessed 
institution  of  learning  that  made  him  among  the 
great  leaders  of  his  generation  the  chosen  instrument 
of  Providence  to  organize  and  unify  the  progressive 
forces  of  American  Israel,  and  gave  him  his  place  in 
history  as  the  master-builder  of  Progressive  American 
Judaism?  I  find  the  answer  in  the  89th  Psalm, 
verse  20:  "Thou  spakest  in  vision  to  Thy  holy  one 
and  saidst,  I  have  laid  My  help  upon  the  mighty 
one;  I  have  exalted  one  chosen  from  among  the 

^Founder's  Day  Address,  1912. 


52  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


people."  Here  you  find  the  heroic  qualities  of  the 
God-chosen  leader  defined.  In  a  glorious  all-ab- 
sorbing vision,  in  luminous  thought  that  lights  up 
all  the  future  for  him  there  appears  his  life's  task  to 
the  providentially  chosen  one  to  take  hold  of  him  and 
endow  him  with  ever-increasing  strength  and  courage, 
with  indomitable  energy  and  perseverance  until 
all  obstacles  and  difficulties  are  swept  aside,  and  he 
stands  forth  as  heroic  victor  with  the  seal  of  God's 
approval  upon  his  illustrious  career,  and  the  people's 
acclamation  as  the  elect  one.  In  other  words,  those 
called  upon  to  greatly  and  signally  advance  humanity 
must  have  the  vision  and  foresight  of  the  prophet 
and  the  power  and  courage  of  the  hero. 

The  Midrash  illustrates  our  text  by  referring  first 
of  all  to  Moses  and  pointing  out  the  significant 
psychic  process  that  made  him  "the  father  of  the 
prophets."  This  is  described  in  the  words  at  the 
beginning  of  Wayikra:  "The  call  came,  sending 
forth  its  thrilling  appeal  to  the  elders  and  sages, 
yet  only  Moses  heard  out  of  the  deafening  noises 
the  voice  of  the  Most  High  calling  him  to  perform 
his  great  task.  And  behold,  he  proved  to  be  the 
mighty  one,  able  to  sustain  the  power  to  which  others 
succumbed,  and  brave  the  opposition  of  a  whole 
people,  to  break  their  idol  and  shatter  the  tablets 
of  the  Law  on  seeing  them  dance  before  the  Golden 
Calf  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Sinai.  His  was  the  strength 
of  will  and  perseverance  to  accomplish  that  wherein 
the  whole  people  failed,  the  erection  of  the  Sanctuary 
in  the  desert,  and  in  his  self-effacement  he  made  the 
Torah  his  own,  and  God's  glory  to  be  reflected  in  his. 


ISAAC  M.  WISE  53 


But  this,  continues  the  Midrash,  was  the  type  of  all 
the  God-inspired  seers  and  leaders  concerning  all 
of  whom  the  Psalmist  says:  "Bless  ye  the  Lord, 
His  messengers,  the  mighty  ones  in  power  who  ful- 
filled His  word,  hearing  His  bidding."  Indeed,  like 
unto  Moses,  were  all  the  prophets  men  of  wondrous 
power  and  fearless  courage,  men  before  whom  people 
and  potentates  stood  in  awe,  because  the  words  they 
spoke  fell  like  thunder  to  shake  the  earth  and  like 
lightning  to  burn  into  the  innermost  conscience, 
like  fire  to  consume  the  evil-doers  and  like  a  hammer 
to  shatter  hearts  hard  as  flint.  With  their  irresis- 
tible zeal  and  world-defying  courage  these  heroic 
battlers  for  truth  and  righteousness,  for  purity  and 
holiness,  routed  the  forces  of  heathendom  to 
rear  the  world  upon  new  foundations  of  morality. 
Yet  what  was  the  secret  of  their  unparallelled  power? 
They  were  neither  mystics,  saints  living  in  the 
clouds  like  the  Hindoo  Brahmins,  nor  proud  sages, 
intellectual  aristocrats  standing  aloof  from  the  masses 
like  the  Greek  philosophers,  but  God's  messengers 
whose  only  strength  and  wisdom,  wealth  and  dignity 
consisted  in  striving,  struggling  and  suffering  for 
the  truth  beheld  by  them  on  the  mount  of  vision  and 
thus  serving  and  fighting  for  the  God  that  called 
them.  But,  says  our  Midrash  further  on:  "Not 
Moses  and  the  prophets  of  old  merely,  but  all  Israel 
were  chosen  to  be  His  messengers  mighty  in  power 
to  fulfill  His  bidding  and  propagate  Sinai's  truths." 
Yes,  the  Jew  is  the  God-chosen  prophet  among  the 
nations  of  history,  and  his  life  throughout  the  cen- 
turies a  continued  heroic  battle  for  the  pure  mono- 


54  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

theistic  truth,  for  righteousness  on  earth,  for  the 
purity  of  home  and  life's  ideal  of  holiness.  What  is 
all  "the  sweetness  and  light  that  came  from  the 
Greeks"  compared  with  the  spiritual  forces  that  came 
from  the  religion  of  Israel?  What  is  the  one  Socrates 
with  his  martyr's  death  compared  with  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  Jewish  martyrs  who  mounted  the 
funereal  pyre  and  offered  their  neck  to  the  execu- 
tioner's sword  with  the  cry:  "Shema  Yisrael"  on 
their  lips;  or  with  the  myriads  of  Jewish  sages  who 
soared  up  to  the  highest  realms  of  truth  while  ever 
holding  fast  to  the  sacred  heritage  of  the  past,  ever 
bent  upon  enriching  the  minds  of  the  millions  of 
their  brethren  by  every  new  acquisition  of  knowledge. 
Indeed,  the  Jew1  was  the  world's  great  hero,  the 
unconquered  conqueror  of  the  nations,  as  long  as 
religion  endowed  him  with  the  power  and  courage 
to  defy  a  world  hostile  to  God  and  truth,  as  long  as 
his  conviction,  his  zeal  and  love  for  God  was  "as 
strong  as  death"  and  "all  the  waters  could  not  ex- 
tinguish his  love  and  loyalty."  But  the  time  came 
when  the  prophetic  truth  lost  for  him  its  bright 
lustre  in  the  narrow  Ghetto  enclosure  and  the  hero 
of  old  was  shorn  of  his  strength  by  the  thousand 
and  one  paragraphs  of  the  Shulhan  Aruk,  so  that 
he  scarcely  knew  how  to  appreciate  any  longer  his 
world-conquering  truth  for  which  he  had  undergone 
a  thousandfold  martyrdom.  The  Nazarite  of  old  fell 
a  prey  to  the  Philistine.  Modern  culture  sapped 
the  strength  of  the  faith  that  had  withstood  the 
onslaught  of  centuries. 

Again  God  called  the  men  of  vision,  the  men  of 
the  spirit,  the  modern  prophets,  the  Reform  pioneers, 


ISAAC  M.  WISE  55 


men  without  fear  who,  like  Moses  of  yore,  dared  break 
the  people's  idols,  the  idolatry  of  blind  letter  and 
authority-worship  in  order  that  the  spirit  might 
again  become  manifest  in  Israel,  men  who  like  Elijah 
brought  the  fire  down  from  heaven  to  make  the 
people  cry  for  the  living  God,  men  who  breathed 
new  life  into  the  dry  bones  of  Judaism  to  awaken  a 
new  faith  and  new  self-consciounsess  in  the  heart  of 
the  modern  Jew.  Let  the  Orthodox  or  the  Nation- 
alists in  our  midst  deride  as  much  as  they  please  the 
Reform  pioneers;  they  were  giants  in  their  genera- 
tions. Theirs  was  the  clear  vision  of  the  prophet 
and  the  resolution  of  the  hero;  they  were  with  every 
inch  men  and  with  every  fiber  of  their  soul  Jews, 
and  they  became,  amidst  the  deluge  of  materialism 
and  skepticism  that  threatened  to  carry  off  the  bul- 
warks of  the  faith,  the  real  saviors  of  Judaism. 
So  in  Germany,  and  so  in  America.  And  while  those 
Reform  pioneers  that  came  from  Germany  and 
especially  David  Einhorn,  with  his  prophetic 
genius,  revitalized  and  regenerated  the  Synagogal 
life,  filling  the  hearts  and  homes  with  new  faith  and 
hope  and  new  self-respect  as  Jews,  it  was  left  to 
Isaac  M.  Wise  to  achieve  the  glorious  work  which  was 
to  safe-guard  Israel's  priceless  heritage  of  the  Torah 
for  future  generations.  It  was  the  great  task  of 
Americanizing  Jew  and  Judaism  that  appeared  to 
him  as  a  vision  on  the  very  threshold  of  his  career 
in  the  new  land,  and  while  concentrating  his  mar- 
velous physical  and  mental  powers  upon  this  mighty 
endeavor,  he  became  the  great  man  of  action,  the 
heroic  battler  for  the  Jew's  rights,  for  Judaism's 


56  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

truth  and  for  God's  treasure  in  Israel's  keeping,  the 
Torah  and  for  a  sanctuary  of  learning.  And  behold 
his  triumphant  success!  The  very  men  who  had 
fought  and  wrestled  with  him  for  years  in  loyalty 
to  their  own  principles  extended  their  hand  of  fellow- 
ship to  him  in  the  end  to  co-operate  with  him  in  the 
realization  of  his  plan  of  rearing  an  institution  of 
Jewish  learning  for  American  Israel  in  which  they  had 
failed.  By  his  unique  powers  of  pen  and  tongue, 
by  incessant  preaching  and  writing,  by  traveling 
throughout  the  length  and  breath  of  the  land,  by 
indefatigable  and  painstaking  efforts  to  bring  home 
to  the  people  near  and  far  the  ideas  and  ideals  of 
Judaism  as  humanity's  everlasting  truth  and  world- 
redeeming  law  of  righteousness,  he  ploughed  the  soil 
and  sowed  the  seeds  finally  to  reap  the  golden  har- 
vest. Thus  he  succeeded  in  building  up  the  Union 
of  American  Hebrew  Congregations  and  crowning 
it  with  the  founding  of  the  College  over  which  it 
was  his  good  fortune  to  preside  for  a  quarter  of 
century  until  he  reached  by  reason  of  his  rare  vigor 
the  four-score  of  years.  And  as  it  is  said  of  Moses, 
his  eyes  did  not  grow  dim  nor  did  his  strength 
abate  until  God  called  him  away  from  his  work  to 
the  Yeshiba  shel  Maalah. 

And  now  again  I  ask  whence  came  to  the  prophets 
of  old  and  to  these  modern  champions  of  light  and  of 
progress  the  power  to  fulfill  the  arduous  task  they 
were  called  upon  to  accomplish?  There  can  be  but 
one  answer:  The  divine  idea  that  took  possession  of 
their  soul,  the  conviction,  the  principle  upon  which 
they  staked  their  life  made  them  irresistible  and 


ISAAC  M.  WISE  57 


fearless.  And  whence  did  they  derive  their  strength 
of  conviction,  their  clear  vision  and  firm  principle? 
Their  knowledge  was  deep  as  is  the  gold  imbedded 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  and  the  precious  pearl 
hidden  in  the  depth  of  the  sea,  and  so  was  their  faith 
firm  as  a  rock,  unshaken  by  current  views  of  fashion. 
There  was  no  break  in  their  system  of  thought,  no 
discord  in  their  philosophy  of  life,  their  Weltan- 
schaung.  Like  the  golden  candlestick  in  the  Taber- 
nacle, they  were  of  one  piece;  their  knowledge  and 
faith  one. 

More  than  ever  before  we  need  men  of  power  and 
of  the  spirit  in  the  pulpit  to-day,  men  that  lead  and 
are  not  led  by  public  opinion  or  by  the  desire  for 
popularity;  men  of  firm  religious  principles  and  not 
seekers  after  sensational  novelties;  in  one  word, 
God-fearing  and  not  man-serving  preachers. 

So  let  the  spirit  of  God  and  zeal  for  Israel's  faith 
permeate  your  whole  life  while  you  are  preparing 
yourselves  for  the  sacred  task  of  the  rabbi  which  is 
to  bring  God  and  godliness  home  to  each  truth-seeking 
soul,  and  allow  not  the  profane  fire  of  a  Zionism 
without  God,  the  dazzling  lights,  the  will  o'  wisps  of 
popular  fads  and  fancies  lure  you  away  from  our 
spiritual  heritage. 

A  king,  says  the  Midrash,  had  a  wise  and  loving 
servant  who  built  a  palatial  residence  for  him, 
taking  the  finest  marble  blocks  for  it  and  having  the 
royal  name  engraved  on  each  with  beautiful  coloring, 
and  when  the  king  entered  the  gorgeous  palace,  he 
wondered  and  said:  "How  can  I  dwell  here,  while 
my  servant  who  honored  me  here  so  grandly  remains 


58  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

outside?  Let  him  come  and  abide  with  me  as  friend." 
So  did  God  with  Moses.  He  had  worked  with  mind 
and  heart,  with  every  step  and  thought  of  his  life 
for  the  glory  of  God,  and  so  God  called  him  "the 
faithful  friend  of  His  house."  So  did  indeed  all  the 
great  toilers  for  God  and  truth  become  sharers  in 
His  Kingdom.  And  among  these  Isaac  M.  Wise 
stands  forth  as  a  master-builder  of  this  sanctuary 
of  the  Torah.  So  may  every  nook  and  corner  of  these 
halls  of  learning  echo  forth  the  cry  to  learners  and 
teachers,  to  student  and  rabbi:  "Be  strong  and  of 
true  courage,  for  thou  art  to  lead  the  world  out  of 
the  darkness  of  doubt  and  denial  to  the  light  of  faith 
and  of  truth,  and  out  of  servitude  to  that  freedom 
which  is  vouched  to  him  who  is  a  true  servant  of 
God."  Amen. 


6. 


MOSES  MIELZINER,  OR  UNCONSCIOUS 
GREATNESS.* 

IT  IS  one  of  the  precious  characteristics  of  Judaism 
that  not  even  its  greatest  of  men  could  assume  the 
attributes  of  Deity.  We  have  no  man-God  nor 
God-man.  The  line  of  demarcation  between  God 
and  man  dares  not  be  encroached  upon  by  any  per- 
son, however  holy.  Even  a  Moses  is  presented  to 
us  as  a  fallible  and  frail  mortal  with  all  the  limita- 
tions and  shortcomings  of  earth-born  men.  Only 
one  feature  of  his  life  seemingly  forms  an  exception 
to  this  rule.  In  the  chapter  (Exodus  XXXIV) 
just  read,  we  are  told  that,  when  coming  down  from 
the  top  of  Mount  Sinai  where  he  had  been  in  com- 
munion with  God  for  forty  days,  and  forty  nights, 
the  skin  of  his  face  shone  with  such  effulgence  that 
the  people  were  unable  to  look  at  him,  and  he  had  to 
cover  his  face  with  a  veil.  Let  me  say  here  in  paren- 
thesis that  the  well-known  figure  of  Moses  chiselled 
by  Michael  Angelo  which  has  a  horn-like  protuber- 
ance emanating  from  his  head  is  based  upon  the 
Vulgate  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Karan  which 
signifies  a  horn-like  radiation — fades  cornuta.  The 
real  meaning  of  the  passage  is  that  Moses'  face 

*Address   at   the    Memorial   Service   held   in   honor  of   Moses 
Mielziner  in  1904. 


60  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


exhaled  a  sun-like  radiance,  the  halo  ascribed  to 
celestial  beings.  We  would  say,  there  was  a  wondrous 
aureole  around  the  brow  of  Moses  manifesting  the 
divine  glory  of  the  Shekinah  reflected  upon  his 
countenance. 

This  superhuman  feature,  however,  is  at  once 
turned  into  a  trait  of  simple  human  greatness  when 
we  are  further  told:  "And  Moses  knew  not  that  the 
skin  of  his  face  shone — that  is,  he  was  not  aware  of 
this  resplendent  mark  of  the  divine  dignity  which  he 
bore  on  his  countenance.  He  had  no  knowledge  that 
God  had  put  the  stamp  of  superiority  in  this  lustre 
of  heavenly  beings  upon  his  brow.  Only  when  he 
noticed  that  the  people  were  struck  with  awe,  as 
he  stepped  among  them,  and  turned  their  eyes  away, 
he  modestly  hid  his  face  before  them.  What  an  ex- 
quisite picture  of  true,  unconscious  greatness!  Let 
me  take  it  as  a  fitting  subject  for  contemplation,  as 
we  are  eager  to  pay  our  tribute  of  loving  regard  and 
honor  to  the  memory  of  Moses  Mielziner,  for  many 
years  the  co-worker  and  afterwards  for  a  couple  of 
years,  the  successor  of  Dr.  Wise  at  the  Hebrew  Union 
College,  whose  first  anniversary  of  death  we  cele- 
brate to-day. 

Our  rabbis,  who  always  knew  how  to  penetrate 
into  the  kernel  of  the  Biblical  truth,  offer  two  differ- 
ent reasons  for  that  luminous  mark  of  divine  glory 
upon  the  face  of  Moses.  "Whence  came  this  radiance 
to  Moses?"  they  ask,  and  one  answer  points  to  that 
sublime  moment  in  Moses'  life  when  he  stood  in  the 
cleft  of  the  rock,  while  God's  majesty  passed  by  him, 


MOSES  MIELZINER  61 


and  there  fell  a  spark  of  the  divine  light  upon  him  to 
illumine  his  face  for  all  time.  Another  answer  points 
to  the  moment  when  he,  a  mere  mortal,  took  the 
tablets  of  the  Law  from  the  hands  of  the  Most  High 
to  impart  the  everlasting  words  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness of  heaven  to  the  people  on  earth,  and  there 
the  effulgent  light  flashed  forth  from  his  face  ever  to 
encircle  it  as  a  diadem  of  glory.  There  are  two  ways 
open  for  man  to  attain  the  highest  realms  of  divine 
life  and  achieve  the  greatest  triumphs.  The  one  is 
to  pursue  truth  as  the  loftiest  ideal  by  having  all 
faculties  and  energies  of  mind  and  soul  bent  upon 
learning  and  the  acquisition  of  wisdom  until  heaven 
and  earth,  the  world  within  and  without,  the  past 
and  the  future,  yield  their  secrets  to  him  as  sage  or 
seer,  and  life  in  its  totality  becomes  illumined  with 
thought  and  purpose  so  as  to  reveal  God's  innermost 
nature  to  the  soaring  intellect.  Of  him  the  Scrip- 
ture says:  "Man's  wisdom  lighteth  up  his  counte- 
nance." A  man  thus  filled  with  wisdom  cannot  fail 
to  impress  us  with  his  true  greatness  by  the  brightness 
which  eradiates  from  his  countenance.  Look  for 
instance  at  the  picture  of  Moses  Mendelssohn  and 
observe  how  this  rather  unseemly  face  with  its 
irregular  features  is  lit  up  by  the  divine  fire  of  genius 
and  fascinates  you  by  that  serenity  and  calmness 
which  betray  both  greatness  of  soul  and  sweetness 
of  heart.  Or  go  through  the  gallery  of  great  thinkers 
and  look  at  the  statues  of  Socrates  and  Plato  or  at 
the  portraits  of  such  lofty  minds  as  have  in  their 
solitude  been  in  communion  with  God  on  high,  and 


62  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


you  cannot  fail  to  discern  the  halo  of  glory,  the 
divine  seal  of  magnificence  upon  their  brow. 

But  alongside  of  these  who  shine  in  solitary 
glory  like  Moses  in  the  cleft  of  the  rock,  there  are 
the  men  of  life-long  labor  in  the  service  of  man- 
kind, the  men  that  wrest  the  light  of  truth,  the  fire 
of  righteousness  and  holiness  from  heaven  and 
diffuse  it  among  men  on  earth,  the  great  teachers 
and  benefactors  of  men,  "the  bestowers  of  wisdom 
that  shine  like  the  splendor  of  the  firmament  and 
those  that  lead  many  to  righteousness  like  the  stars 
forever  and  aye."  They  are  less  concerned  with  the 
accumulation  of  the  highest  wisdom  and  knowledge 
to  satisfy  the  craving  of  their  own  soul  than  with  the 
enriching  of  other  minds  and  supplying  the  needs 
of  their  fellow-man.  The  divine  goodness  with  which 
their  hearts  abound  is  mirrored  upon  their  brow, 
and  the  grace  of  heaven  rests  upon  their  benign  face 
to  tell  that  they  are  the  beloved  of  God  as  well  as 
the  lovers  of  men. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the  beautiful  features 
delineated  in  our  text  were,  indeed,  found  in  our 
never-to-be-forgotten  Moses  Mielziner  who  as  col- 
league or  teacher,  and  always  as  friend  endeared 
himself  to  us  and  all  who  came  into  contact  with 
him.  Even  before  he  came  to  America  he  showed, 
whether  as  teacher  and  rabbi  in  Copenhagen  and 
New  York,  or  as  writer,  all  the  virtues  of  a  pains- 
taking searcher  after  truth,  the  accuracy  and  thor- 
oughness of  an  eminent  Rabbinical  scholar.  And 
just  because  his  New  York  friends,  among  whom  I 


MOSES  MIELZINER  63 


will  mention  Einhorn,  Adler  and  Huebsch,  appre- 
ciated and  admired  the  erudition  and  acumen  of 
the  fine  Talmudic  scholar  who  was  so  familiar  with 
the  whole  household  of  Jewish  lore  as  to  be  more 
worthy  than  any  one  else  in  America  to  be  entrusted 
with  the  task  of  training  young  men  for  the  Rab- 
binical career  alongside  of  Dr.  Wise  at  the  Hebrew 
Union  College,  they  induced  him  to  accept  the  call 
to  the  Talmudic  chair,  and  he  proved,  indeed,  a 
mighty  power  of  support  and  a  pillar  of  strength  to 
the  College  and  its  immortal  founder. 

But  Moses  Mielziner  was  more  than  a  mere 
scholar.  His  was  the  soul  of  a  lover  of  God  and  man. 
He  was  by  nature  not  a  fighter,  neither  for  startling 
new  truth  to  displace  long  cherished  old,  though 
antiquated,  views,  nor  for  radical  Reform  principles 
to  demolish  the  traditional  system  based  upon  Tal- 
mudical  law.  Instead  he  loved  to  dive  into  the  sea 
of  the  Talmud  to  bring  to  the  light  of  day  precious 
pearls  of  wisdom  and  hand  them  to  his  pupils  for 
guidance  and  monition.  Neither  was  he  eager  to 
put  the  literature  and  learning  of  the  past  into  a  new 
mould  foreign  to  their  main  purpose,  as  some  radical 
Reformers  did.  As  the  rabbis  say  of  Moses  that 
"he  seized  part  of  the  tables  and  God  held  part  of 
them,  while  there  was  space  left  between,"  so  did 
Moses  Mielziner  ever  exert  a  certain  self-restraint, 
not  taking  too  much  into  his  grasp  but  rather  to  leave 
room  for  the  old  and  the  new  to  blend.  Thus  he 
became  a  skilful  master  of  the  Halakah  to  make  it 
voice  the  living  truth  as  required  by  the  time.  But 


64  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

above  all  he  was,  like  Moses  of  old,  the  meekest  of 
men,  and  by  his  exceeding  modesty  and  self-denial 
he  won  the  warm  affection  and  profound  regard  of 
pupils  and  fellow-workers  as  few  did.  And  now  behold 
his  portrait  as  painted  by  his  own  son,  Leo  Mielziner! 
Does  his  serene  and  placid  face  not  bear  the  stamp 
of  inner  greatness,  of  divine  grace  and  glory?  His 
was  that  greatness  which,  like  that  of  Moses,  comes 
from  true  humility.  Even  the  greatness  of  the  father 
of  the  prophets  did  not  consist  in  his  mighty  intel- 
lectual grasp  which  comprised,  as  the  rabbis  tell  us, 
forty-nine  out  of  the  fifty  degrees  of  the  divine  wis- 
dom. Neither  the  spirit  which  soared  up  to  the  ethereal 
realms  of  sublimest  truth  nor  the  matchless  service 
he  did  to  his  people  accorded  to  Moses  the  highest 
place  in  history.  It  was  his  personality  which,  while 
striving  so  high  and  working  so  intensely  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people,  sunk  his  own  self  altogether  in  the 
work  he  did  and  the  cause  he  served.  Truth  was  too 
lofty  and  the  people's  cause  too  dear  and  holy  to 
him  to  consider  his  own  self  and  his  own  merit  in 
the  work  he  achieved.  Because  Moses  hid  his  face 
in  humility  when  he  first  beheld  God's  majesty  in 
the  flaming  bush — the  rabbis  say  furthermore — he 
was  crowned  by  God  with  that  diadem  of  glory  that 
the  people  stood  in  awe  before  him,  seeing  that 
radiance  of  divinity  that  marked  his  face.  True 
greatness  ever  manifests  itself  in  simplicity,  in 
reverence  before  God  and  in  humility  before  men. 
It  was  this  Moses-like  humility  and  meekness  which 
made  a  Hillel  and  a  Moses  Mendelssohn  influential 


MOSES  MIELZINER  65 


leaders  and  moulders  of  men.  It  is  the  secret  of 
Abraham  Lincoln's  ever  growing  popularity  among 
the  American  people.  Meekness  and  modesty  were 
also  the  pre-eminent  traits  of  Moses  Mielziner.  He 
did  not  know  himself  what  charm  there  was  about 
what  he  spoke  and  what  he  taught,  because  of  his 
unselfish  devotion  to  his  task  as  learner  and  as  teacher. 

Truly  he  should  ever  be  held  up  by  us  as  a  pattern 
and  model  to  be  followed  and  emulated.  Especially 
ought  the  students  and  graduates  of  the  Hebrew 
Union  College  take  the  life  and  personality  of  Moses 
Mielziner  home  to  themselves  as  a  lesson  for  their 
career. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  humility,  self- 
forgetting  modesty  is  becoming  one"  of  the  lost  arts 
among  the  rabbis  no  less  than  among  other  men  in 
their  private  or  public  life.  Too  often,  popularity 
is  sought  by  self-parading,  while  self-effacement  in 
the  great  cause  is  seldom  shown  by  our  public  men. 
Yet  the  people  need  most  of  all  examples  of  meekness 
and  humility  in  an  age  which,  puffed  up  by  reason,  has 
unlearned  how  to  bend  the  knee  before  God.  It  is 
a  fatal  error  to  ascribe  greatness  to  mere  intellectual- 
ity, especially  so  in  the  domain  of  religion  whose  deep 
emotional  forces  must  make  man  aspire  to  God  and 
to  the  highest  ideals  of  life.  Nor  is  true  greatness 
won  by  good  work  alone,  if  the  soul  is  not  thrilled 
by  the  fervor  of  a  disinterested  service  of  God  and 
man.  Judaism  wants  all  the  avenues  of  knowledge 
opened  for  man  to  beckon  him  on  to  the  highest 
realm  of  thought,  and  all  the  roads  of  human  benef- 


66  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

icence  laid  out  to  improve  and  elevate  the  condi- 
tions of  men;  but  teacher  and  worker,  seeker  for  truth 
and  for  human  welfare  must,  like  Moses,  at  the  very 
top  of  his  successful  endeavors  bend  his  face  in 
reverential  humility  before  the  Most  High  in  order 
that  at  life's  completion  the  divine  seal  of  approval 
upon  his  brow  may  test  to  this  excellence  of  the  work 
achieved.  So  may  the  memory  of  Moses  Mielziner 
be  to  us  a  help  and  an  inspiration,  and  a  blessing 
forever.  Amen. 


7. 
DAVID  EIXHORN  AND  SAMUEL  ADLER.* 

IT  IS  a  delicate  task  that  has  devolved  upon  me 
as  President  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College  and 
successor  to  its  immortal  founder,  Isaac  M.  Wise, 
to  speak  on  behalf  of  the  College  authorities  and 
Cincinnati  Jewry  in  honor  of  the  memory  of  the 
Reform  pioneers  whose  hundreth  anniversary  of 
birth  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew  Congregations 
has  decided  to  celebrate  this  week.  David  Einhorn 
and  Samuel  Adler,  the  illustrious  New  York  rabbis, 
two  knights  of  the  Jewish  legion  of  immortals  who 
often  parried  swords  with  the  sainted  Cincinnati 
leader.  But  I  derive  courage  in  doing  so  from  the 
Rabbinical  saying:  "Where  disciples  of  the  wise 
enter  into  a  combat  on  behalf  of  Israel's  sacred 
heritage,  they  will  ultimately  arrive  at  a  state  of 
mutual  appreciation  and  amity."  These  great  war- 
riors in  the  cause  of  God  and  truth  have  all  entered 
into  heaven's  realm  of  peace,  and  the  homage  we  pay 
to  the  one  or  the  other  is  a  tribute  of  gratitude  and 
admiration  to  all  the  heroes  whose  life  is  an  inspira- 
tion and  a  pattern  to  us,  their  heirs  and  disciples. 
In  commenting  upon  the  words  in  our  Weekly 
Portion  spoken  by  Abraham:  "The  God  of  heaven 

'Address  at  their  Centenary  Celebration,  delivered  at  Temple 
Bene  Israel,  on  Sabbath  Parashath  Toledoth,  1909,  Cin- 
cinnati. 


68  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

and  the  God  of  the  earth,"  the  rabbis  say  "Abraham's 
life  task  was  to  bring  the  Godhead  believed  to  be 
enthroned  only  in  the  heaven  above,  down  to  the 
hearts  of  men  on  earth."  This  is,  indeed,  the  whole 
idea  underlying  the  Reform  movement.  It  is  the 
God  within,  the  God  of  humanity  that  we  want  to 
bring  home  to  our  generation.  Commonplace  truth 
as  this  seems  to  be,  we  scarcely  realize  what  price 
our  heroic  leaders  had  to  pay  for  it,  what  trials  and 
sufferings  they  had  to  undergo  to  win  their  generation 
for  the  real  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  our  faith. 
Cynics  may  tell  the  people  that  the  mere  desire 
for  the  things  forbidden  by  the  Mosaic  law  created 
the  Reform  movement  in  America.  How  little  do 
they  appreciate  the  inner  struggles  and  heart-burnings 
each  step  from  the  Ghetto  darkness  to  the  light  of 
the  new  day  cost  those  lofty-minded  pathfinders  of 
Reform,  and  what  bitter  anguish  and  martyrdom 
they  underwent  for  their  conviction.  Our  sages  of 
old  fully  appreciated  the  trials  of  a  religious  hero 
when  they  represented  Abraham  as  having  had  to 
go  through  the  fiery  furnace  of  the  tyrant  Nimrod 
in  order  to  have  his  faith  tested,  before  he  could  go 
out  preaching  the  Only  One  God,  to  a  listening  world. 
He  had  to  be  a  brave,  fearless  idol-breaker  challenging 
the  wrathful  ruler,  before  he  could  go  forth  in  pursuit 
of  his  ideal  and  be  an  altar-builder  to  God  on  high. 
He  had  to  encounter  all  the  curses  of  a  fanatic  mul- 
titude, ere  he  could  start  out  on  his  mission  to  be 
a  blessing  to  all  mankind.  H*e  had  first  to  present 
his  credentials  as  a  man  of  firm  principles  and  of 
high  character  before  he  could  be  revered  by  those 


EINHORN  AND  ADLER  69 

around  him  as  a  prophet  and  a  "prince  of  God." 
Abraham  was  the  prototype  of  the  Jew. 

What  lent  the  Jew  the  wondrous  power  of  en- 
durance and  resistance  with  which  he  braved  fire 
and  sword  and  a  thousandfold  death  for  the  sake  of 
his  faith,  but  that  glorious  example  offered  him  by 
the  patriarch,  of  a  passionate  love  for  truth  and  of 
a  steadfast  belief  in  the  God  of  heaven  who  shall  one 
day  be  the  God  worshipped  from  one  end  of  the  earth 
to  the  other? 

Still,  these  simple  and  sublime  truths  were  lost 
sight  of  under  the  crushing  weight  of  meaningless 
and  soulless  practices  tenaciously  adhered  to  by  blind 
orthodoxy.  In  order,  then,  to  emancipate  the  modern 
Jew  from  the  thraldom  of  letter  and  authority  wor- 
ship and  liberate  the  imprisoned  kernel  from  the 
shell  of  dry  legalism,  the  Reformer  had  to  step  forth 
boldly  as  an  idol-breaker  and  incur  the  hatred,  the 
curse  and  persecution  of  the  fanatic.  In  order  to 
restore  the  faith  in  God  and  in  man  in  all  its  prophetic 
grandeur,  he  had  to  display  the  fearlessness,  the  for- 
titude and  heroism  of  the  martyr  often  only  to  be 
overcome,  like  Abraham,  by  a  feeling  of  loneliness 
and  forsakenness  and  find  comfort  and  strength 
only  in  God  who  would  appear  to  him  in  the  night 
of  perplexity  and  peril,  saying:  "Fear  not!  I  am 
thy  shield,  and  thy  reward  will  be  very  great." 

This  is  the  story  of  all  great  Reform  pioneers,  as 
it  was  that  of  the  prophets  of  old,  all  of  whom  felt 
that  there  was  a  fire  burning  within  which  they  could 
not  quench,  a  message  God  had  planted  into  their 
heart  which  they  could  not  withhold.  But  there  are 


70  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


few  life-stories  so  full  of  pathos,  of  such  tremendous 
and  almost  tragic  earnestness  as  is  that  of  David 
Einhorn.  His  life  was  a  continuous  martyrdom  from 
the  day  when  he  who  had  been  crowned  with  the 
Rabbinical  diadem  of  the  Torah  in  his  seventeenth 
year,  came  back  from  the  university,  imbued  with 
modern  ideas,  to  be  proscribed  and  persecuted  by  his 
own  teachers  at  the  Yeshibah  of  Fuerth  as  a  heretic 
and  infidel,  to  that  terrible  night  of  mob  rule  in 
Baltimore  when  he  had  to  flee  for  his  life,  because 
he  was  singled  out  for  assault  as  one  of  the  most 
pronounced  and  intrepid  Anti-Slavery  men  of  the 
pulpit  and  the  press.  Like  Abraham,  he  had  to  wander 
from  land  to  land  and  from  city  to  city,  hunted  by 
fanatics  and  despots  because  of  his  independence 
of  mind  and  his  courage  of  conviction.  The  friend 
of  Abraham  Geiger,  the  peer  and  successor  of  Samuel 
Holdheim,  one  of  the  most  scholarly  expounders  of 
the  Reform  principles  at  the  Rabbinical  Conferences 
of  Frankfort-on-Main  and  Breslau,  he  had  hardly 
found  a  field  of  activity  worthy  of  his  brilliant 
capacities  as  chief  rabbi  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 
when  Jewish  and  Lutheran  orthodoxy  conspired 
against  him  to  undermine  his  position,  because  he 
had  quite  correctly  declared  that  not  the  Abraham- 
itic  rite  but  Jewish  birth  renders  the  Jew  a 
Jew.  And  no  sooner  did  he  begin  to  preach  the 
truth  of  Judaism  to  the  radicals  of  the  Reform  Con- 
gregation at  Budapest  than  the  Government  shut 
to  him  the  gates  of  his  temple  at  the  instigation  of 
the  conservatives  who  denounced  him  as  a  revolu- 
tionary. And  when  at  last  he  reached  the  goal 


EINHORN  AND  ADLER  71 

of  his  destination  in  our  land  of  liberty,  his  ordeals 
were  not  yet  at  an  end.  He  was  branded  by  ortho- 
dox and  reform  rabbis  alike  as  an  enemy  of  Jew  and 
Judaism  and  antagonized  as  an  iconoclast. 

They  failed  to  understand  him  whom  they  so 
bitterly  assailed.  He  was,  indeed,  an  idol-breaker. 
He  strove  to  end  all  hypocrisy  in  the  pulpit  and  in 
the  rabbis'  private  life.  He  wanted  truth  and  not 
the  semblance  of  truth.  His  was  that  fiery  soul 
that  could  not  brook  compromise.  Like  Elijah  on 
Mount  Carmel  he  cried  forth:  "Choose  between 
God  and  Baal,  between  Orthodoxy  and  Reform, 
but  halt  not  between  two  opinions!"  While  the 
great  master-builder  of  American  Judaism,  Isaac 
M.  Wise,  followed  the  maxim  of  the  German  state- 
builder:  "First  Unity  and  then  Liberty,"  Einhorn 
stood  unyieldingly  by  the  principle:  "First  Truth 
and  then  Peace,"  and  thus  became  the  master-mind 
of  Reform  theology.  Isaac  M.  Wise  was  the  altar- 
builder  of  American  Jewry  throughout  the  west, 
the  south  and  the  north;  David  Einhorn  the  altar- 
builder  of  Reform  Judaism,  the  principles  of  which 
found  expression  at  the  Philadelphia  Conference  and 
were  afterwards  embodied  in  the  Union  Prayer  Book 
which  is  bone  of  his  bone  and  spirit  of  his  spirit. 
Einhorn  invested  the  pulpit  with  new  dignity  and 
made  it  echo  forth  that  American  patriotism  which 
stands  for  the  highest  ideals  of  humanity. 

His  limitation  was  that  he  remained  German  in 
speech  and  mode  of  thought.  He  stood  on  top  hold- 
ing aloft  the  staff  of  Reform,  and  the  masses  under- 
stood him  not.  Few  know  that  on  coming  to  New 


72  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

York  he  also  contemplated  establishing  a  Hebrew 
College,  and  when  afterwards  he  with  several  others 
in  common  with  his  friend  Samuel  Adler,  secured 
funds  for  this  purpose,  it  was  not  realized,  and  he 
withdrew.  Providence  chose  Isaac  M.  Wise  to  be 
the  builder  of  the  Rabbinical  school  for  progressive 
American  Jewry.  He  had  the  full  command  of  the 
people,  and  in  accepting  the  Chairmanship  of  the 
Committee  on  the  Course  of  Studies  for  the  Hebrew 
Union  College,  Einhorn  showed  his  perfect  willing- 
ness to  aid  him  in  the  great  cause.  Einhorn's  last 
words  from  the  pulpit  at  the  time  of  his  retirement 
was  a  blessing  for  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew 
Congregations.  "I  am  a  Hebrew"  was  the  text  of 
his  farewell  sermon  in  which  he  summed  up  his 
eventful  life,  and  all  his  colleagues  throughout  the 
land,  west  and  east,  Orthodox  and  Reformer, 
united  in  honoring  him  as  a  true  "prince  of  God." 

But  how  about  Einhorn's  friend  and  co-worker, 
Samuel  Adler?  The  rabbis  note  that  Scripture  speaks 
of  Moses  and  Aaron,  at  times  mentioning  Moses 
after  Aaro'n  and  at  other  times  before  him,  and  they 
say:  "This  shows  that  before  God  they  rank  alike. 
Alongside  of  the  man  with  that  vehement  passion 
for  truth  and  justice,  the  unflinching  insistence  on 
right  and  the  unrelenting  castigation  of  wrongdoing, 
such  as  Moses  was,  the  milder  disposition  of  an 
Aaron  with  his  calmer  and  more  cautious  mind  is 
needed  to  encourage  and  aid  the  former  when  his 
spirit  droops,  and  to  win  the  people  for  his  message. 
Einhorn  and  Adler,  like  Wise  and  Lilienthal,  belonged 
together  as  the  Aaron  and  Moses  of  American  Re- 


EINHORN  AND  ADLER  73 


form.  Samuel  Adler,  the  scholar  and  conservative 
Reformer  at  the  Conference  of  Brunswick  and  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main  became  the  co-worker  and  ally  of 
Einhorn  as  soon  as  he  came  to  this  country.  Knowing 
and  admiring  the  companion  of  his  youth  as  the 
lofty-spirited  champion,  the  knight  without  fear  and 
without  blemish  whose  sword  was  so  sharp,  yet  so 
bright  and  clean  from  rust,  he  seconded  him  in  every 
movement  and  promoted  his  endeavors  exactly  as 
did  Dr.  Lilienthal  those  of  Dr.  Wise.  He  published 
little,  but  what  he  wrote  or  spoke  bore  the  stamp 
of  profound  thought,  and  his  library  which  his 
children  donated  to  the  Hebrew  Union  College 
testifies  to  the  wide  range  of  his  scholarly  studies. 
Einhorn  and  Adler,  entwined  in  their  life,  shall  not 
be  separated  in  the  esteem  of  posterity  in  their  death. 
They  will  live  in  American  Jewry  as  long  as  Jewish 
fidelity,  Jewish  thinking  and  feeling  will  live  and 
inspire  us  with  love  for,  and  loyalty  to,  our  Jewish 
patrimony,  a  blessing  and  a  benediction  forever. 
Amen. 


8. 
SAMUEL  HIRSCH.* 

"The  wise  shall  shine  like  the  brightness  of  the  firma- 
ment and  those  that  lead  many  to  righteousness  like 
the  stars  forever  and  aye."  Daniel  XII  3. 

WHAT  the  azure  blue  is  which  fills  the  universe, 
linking  star  to  star  in  the  vast  infinitude  of 
space,  modern  science  has  as  yet  failed  to  discover. 
We  only  know  that  it  is  akin  to  the  luminous  orbs 
and  impregnated  with  star-life.  The  stars  them- 
selves have  yielded  their  secret  to  us.  We  know  that 
they  differ  from  our  sun  and  its  planetary  system 
only  in  degree,  not  in  kind;  in  quantity,  not  in  quality 
of  their  life  and  life  elements.  But  while  yonder  are 
so  near  and  indispensable  to  us  as  to  furnish  us  with 
the  very  essence  of  our  life,  others  are  so  remote 
as  to  serve  only  the  mariner  and  the  astronomer  as 
marks  and  guides  in  their  calculations;  and  others 
again  are  at  such  a  distance  that  they  seem  almost 
to  merge  in  the  ethereal  element  surrounding  them. 
Such  are  the  great  men  on  the  firmament  of  human 
history.  Some  move  at  such  remote  distances  that 
the  rays  of  light  which  emanated  from  them  have 
penetrated  our  entire  spirituality,  while  they  them- 
selves are  scarcely  distinguishable  in  their  peculiar 

*Memorial  Address  delivered  at  Temple  Sinai,  Chicago,  May, 
1889. 


76  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

relation  to  us.  Others  shine  like  polar  stars,  like 
mighty  finger-posts  of  Divine  guidance,  mapping 
out  the  road  and  the  destination  for  us.  But  then 
there  are  those  who  shine  like  the  sun  and  the  moon 
on  our  path,  forming  sum  and  substance,  permeating 
bone  and  marrow  of  our  existence,  the  fashioners 
and  leaders  of  our  age. 

Thus  while  speaking  of  our  Reform  pioneers, 
we  gratefully  acknowledge  Samuel  Hirsch  to  have 
been  one  of  these  luminous  orbs,  part  of  the  solar 
constellation  that  brightened  up  our  mental  horizon 
and  imbued  us  with  new  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life-force.  He  stands  forth  in  unique  splendor  as 
one  who  dared,  when  still  very  young,  to  write  a 
philosophy  of  Judaism  after  the  prevailing  system  of 
Hegel,  transforming  the  Mosaic  and  Talmudic  tales 
and  ordinances  into  allegories  and  symbols,  and  to 
present  Israel  s  faith  to  the  world  as  "  the  religion 
of  humanity." 

In  order  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  such  Reform- 
Pioneers  as  were  Geiger,  Holdheim,  Einhorn,  Hirsch 
and  others  in  Germany,  we  must  guard  against 
conferring  upon  them  the  claim  of  infallibility  which 
they  themselves  have  wrested  for  us  from  the  author- 
ities of  old.  We  would  sin  against  the  very  spirit 
of  progress  which  made  them  leaders  and  prophets 
of  their  age,  should  we  attempt  to  canonize  their 
every  word.  We  would,  furthermore,  do  them  in- 
justice, were  we  to  weigh  all  their  utterances  and 
opinions  in  the  scale  of  modern  research  and  by  the 
standard  of  recent  investigations.  Truth  grows, 
and  many  a  thing  which  seemed  true  fifty  years  ago, 


SAMUEL  HIRSCH  77 


is  no  longer  considered  so  to-day.  Heaven  and  earth 
have  been  revolutionized  since.  Creation  and  Revela- 
tion have  assumed  altogether  new  aspects  in  the 
perspective  of  this  Darwinian  age  of  ours.  Both 
religion  and  ethics  present  different  and  far  more 
difficult  problems  than  they  did  two  generations  ago. 
The  catechisms  of  Einhorn  and  Holdheim,  of  Hirsch, 
Formstecher  and  Herxheimer,  have  served  their 
day.  Whether  they  dogmatize  after  Maimonidean 
fashion,  or  allegorize  after  the  example  of  Philo, 
they  start  from  premises  which  we  no  longer  recognize 
as  ours.  Their  rationalism  and  Geiger's  criticism 
appear  in  some  respects  alike  antiquated  from  our 
advanced  point  of  view.  In  fact,  our  progress  was 
rather  one-sided.  In  order  to  make  our  religion  the 
rallying  power  of  many,  and  not  of  the  few,  we  must 
lay  more  stress  on  the  emotional  and  the  practical 
side  than  on  the  mere  intellectual  and  theoretical 
one,  as  has  thus  far  been  done.  Like  the  boat  on  the 
water,  so  also  has  the  vessel  which  carries  man,  two 
rudders  to  steer  it  forward;  and  like  the  bird,  so  does 
the  soul-life  require  two  wings  to  soar  aloft,  and  these 
are  mind  and  heart,  well  balanced  and  harmonized. 
The  work  of  reform,  then,  is  far  from  being  completed. 
Judaism  has  to  undergo  many  changes  yet.  But  all 
the  greater  is  our  indebtedness  to  those  men  who 
have  risen  to  the  demands  of  their  age,  turning 
Judaism  from  stability  and  stagnation  to  progress 
and  enlightenment,  and  elevating  it  from  Oriental- 
ism and  Ritualism  to  the  ideal  of  a  broad  ethical  and 
prophetical  religion  of  humanity.  Their  providential 
task  consisted  in  their  having  shown  the  world  that 


78  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Israel  is  not  a  mere  relic  of  the  past,  a  curse-laden 
wanderer  with  the  mark  of  sin  on  his  care-furrowed 
brow;  but,  like  Abraham,  still  a  seed  of  great  promise; 
that  Judaism  is  not  the  desolate  and  forsaken  daugh- 
ter of  Zion,  but  like  Sarah  still  the  princess  among 
the  religions  of  the  world.  Not  a  race-religion,  the 
heirloom  of  a  single  Oriental  tribe,  but  a  light  and  a 
bond  interlinking  all  the  nations  and  sects;  that  its 
staff  of  life  is  not  withered,  but  was  only  waiting  for 
the  spring-tide  of  modern  civilization  to  burst  forth 
into  new  buds  and  blossoms,  and  ripen  new  fruit  to 
feed  humanity  thereon. 

And,  behold!  Do  these  leaders  of  Reform  not 
still  shine  aloft  in  solitary  glory,  pointing  the  way? 
Do  they  not  still,  like  Moses  with  Aaron  and  Hur 
on  his  side,  stand  high  upon  the  mountain-top  hold- 
ing up  the  banner  of  victory  to  cheer  and  to  inspire 
us  in  the  struggle  for  a  religion  purified,  spiritualized 
and  world-embracing;  whereas  the  bulk,  the  great 
majority  of  Jews,  still  grope  in  the  darkness  of  fear 
and  superstition,  of  letter-worship  and  authority- 
belief,  while  others  wallow  in  the  mire  of  materialism 
and  sensualism,  forgetful  of  their  obligations  to  the 
past  and  to  the  glorious  future  of  mankind? 

Yet,  while  each  of  these  great  pioneers  of  Reform 
shines  with  a  peculiar  light  of  his  own,  each  having 
advanced  some  new  idea  which  formed  a  foundation 
stone  in  the  structure  of  modern  Judaism,  Samuel 
Hirsch  deserves  special  credit  for  a  virtue  so  rare 
among  the  pulpit-men  of  all  denominations,  and  which 
made  him,  like  Einhorn,  the  target  of  fanatical  ortho- 
doxy and  the  threat  and  terror  of  the  time-serving 


SAMUEL  HIRSCH  79 


hypocrite,  for  his  intellectual  honesty  and  inde- 
pendence. Both  Einhorn  and  Hirsch  emancipated 
American  Judaism  from  the  thraldom  of  ritualistic 
hypocrisy  and  deceit,  thereby  raising  it  in  the  respect 
of  the  world  as  well  as  in  self-esteem.  But  while 
Einhorn  spent  his  main  force  in  this  glorious  battle 
until  it  resulted  in  a  complete  victory,  and  he  died 
with  a  prayer  for  the  success  of  the  Sunday  service 
upon  his  lips,  Samuel  Hirsch  actually  introduced  the 
Sunday  service  in  his  Congregation  in  Philadelphia, 
and  he  remained  aggressive  and  grew  in  boldness 
and  outspoken  radicalism  as  he  advanced  in  years, 
so  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  prophetic  mantle  of  Samuel 
Holdheim  of  Germany  had  fallen  upon  him  in  Amer- 
ica. Having  been  of  that  unbending  cast  of  mind, 
of  that  rigid,  unyielding  intellectualism  which  would 
not  shrink  from  turning  the  whole  Mosaic  law,  with 
its  legendary  poetry  and  its  priestly  ritualism  into 
one  great  symbolic  lesson  of  labor,  one  system  of 
instruction  to  work  and  to  improve  matter  and  mind 
on  earth,  he  made  the  Sabbath  the  corner-stone  of 
that  religion  of  toiling  humanity,  insisting  all  the 
more  upon  the  observance  of  the  Sunday  as  the 
common  day  of  rest  for  all.  He  thus  became  on  this 
free  virgin  soil  of  America  the  most  uncompromising 
advocate  of  this  most  radical  of  all  reform  measures — 
the  transfer  of  the  historical  Sabbath  to  Sunday. 

Both  nature  and  history  advance  slowly  and  surely, 
not  by  leaps  and  destructive  storms.  I  trust,  I  am 
personally  too  long  and  too  intimately  connected 
with  the  Sunday  movement  in  this,  my  still  beloved 
former  congregation  and  in  the  country  at  large,  to 


80  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


be  misunderstood  if  I  venture  to  say  that  the  prophet- 
ical hope  for  the  time  when  all  flesh  will  bow  before 
God  on  one  and  the  same  Sabbath  will  and  must 
necessarily  ripen  but  slowly  and  gradually.  But  this 
I  will  say:  When  Progressive  Judaism  in  America 
will  once  have  united  upon  declaring  before  the  world : 
"Better  the  public  Sabbath  day  kept  in  earnest 
than  to  have  a  sham  Sabbath  clung  to  in  name, 
but  violated  in  fact!"  then  the  name  of  Samuel 
Hirsch  will  stand  out  in  bold  relief  in  the  future 
history  of  Judaism,  as  he  ventured  to  stand  out  in 
every  Conference  and  Synod  in  which  he  took  part 
for  the  last  fifty  years. 

It  almost  seems  fore-ordained  that  the  mortal 
frame,  as  well  as  the  immortal  fame  of  Samuel 
Hirsch,  should  remain  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the 
Chicago  Sinai  Congregation  and  its  distinguished 
leader,  his  own  son. 

So  let  us  honor  the  conscientious  and  profound 
scholar,  the  zealous  defender  of  the  cause  of  Judaism 
and  humanity,  the  noble-hearted  and  untiring  worker 
in  the  field  of  education  and  religion,  of  charity  and 
philanthropy,  the  honest  and  stalwart  soldier  in 
the  army  of  progress  and  of  enlightenment  by  not 
simply  placing  him  on  mere  partisan  lines.  Samuel 
Hirsch's  loyalty  and  devotion  to  our  priceless  ances- 
tral heirloom ;  his  labors  on  behalf  of  religious  instruc- 
tion and  of  true  beneficence,  will  secure  him  a  high 
rank  in  the  history  of  modern  Israel  and  will  forever 
redound  to  the  glory  of  American  Judaism  and  the 
Jewish  pulpit.  His  hands  were  held  up  to  bless, 
his  heart  remained  faithful  to  the  cause  of  God  and 


SAMUEL  HIRSCH  81 


of  Israel,  and  his  head  clear  and  bright  in  eagerness 
to  disclose  the  grandeur  of  Judaism,  until  his  life's 
sun  set,  henceforth  to  shed  its  bright  radiance  from 
a  serener  realm  of  blessedness. 

And  we  can  in  no  better,  nor  more  befitting  man- 
ner honor  his  memory  than  by  working  in  the  same 
spirit  and  with  the  same  loyalty  to  our  conviction, 
following  the  dictates  of  our  own  conscience  and 
obeying  the  demands  of  our  age  and  surrounding 
conditions  in  unbroken  continuity  with  our  great 
past  and  in  consonance  with  the  claims  and  prospects 
of  our  glorious  future. 

Of  the  ancient  prophet  Samuel  we  read  that  his 
spirit  was  called  up  from  the  dead  only  to  cast  an 
all  the  more  glaring  light  of  contrast  upon  a  degener- 
ate age.  We  desire  to  have  the  spirit  of  Samuel 
Hirsch  to  work  with  us  as  a  living  force  serving  us 
as  landmark  and  finger-post  in  the  progress  of  Ju- 
daism, in  the  advance  of  humanity,  in  the  unfolding  of 
all  that  is  divine  in  man  and  humanity.  Russian  folk- 
lore tells  of  heroes  who  could  not  die  before  having 
imbued  their  successors  with  their  last  breath  in 
order  to  equip  them  with  the  strength  enabling  them 
to  emulate  their  prowess  and  fill  the  world  with  their 
fame.  Thus  let  us  imbibe  the  last  breath  of  our  great 
leaders  and  prophetic  heroes  to  feel  the  glow  of  their 
enthusiasm  and  love  for  all  that  is  holy  to  mankind 
and  precious  in  the  eyes  of  God,  that  they  may  shine 
for  us  and  for  coming  generations  "like  the  brightness 
of  the  firmament  and  like  the  stars  forever  and  aye." 
Amen. 


9. 

ABRAHAM  GEIGER.* 
THE  MASTER  BUILDER  OF  MODERN  JUDAISM. 

SURELY  the  Lord  God  will  do  nothing  unless 
He  revealeth  His  secret  to  His  servants,  the 
prophets."  Often  the  question  is  asked  whether  the 
age  creates  the  man  who  imprints  his  name  and  char- 
acter upon  an  epoch,  or  the  man  the  age  that  stands 
for  certain  ideas  and  ideals.  The  fact  is,  that  Provi- 
dence so  welds  the  collective  and  the  individual 
forces  together  as  to  make  them  work  out  its  own  plans 
and  purposes,  and  so  does  the  genius  reveal  the 
secrets  of  God.  In  Abraham  Geiger,  Judaism  reached 
a  new  stage  of  its  existence.  He  broke  the  spell  of 
centuries  and  spoke  the  liberating  word  which  im- 
bued it  with  new  life  and  vigor,  with  new  self-con- 
sciousness and  self-confidence.  He  was  the  prophet 
to  whom  God  revealed  the  secret  of  the  age  for 
modern  Israel.  He  was  its  genius  of  rejuvenation 
and  became  the  spiritual  regenerator  of  Judaism 
and  the  Jew.  He  gave  the  reform  movement  its 
scientific  basis,  its  historical  foundation,  and  thus 
became  the  master-builder  of  modern  Judaism.  Be- 
fore the  torch-light  of  his  keen  research  and  the 
brightness  of  his  vision,  the  dark  recesses  of  Jewish 

"Centenary  Address,  May  28th,  1910. 


84  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

history  were  lit  up,  and  order  and  harmony  entered 
the  chaos  of  Jewish  thought.  For  him  Judaism  spelt 
progress  and  development,  and  therein  he  found  the 
key  to  unlock  the  mysteries  of  the  past,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  magic  power  wherewith  to  revitalize 
the  Law,  and  the  faith  of  Israel  that  seemed  to  be 
on  the  decline.  Not  only,  then,  as  the  first  and  fore- 
most champion  of  Reform  pioneers  does  Abraham 
Geiger  claim  our  homage  on  this  Sabbath,  on  the 
Sabbath  following  the  hundredth  anniversary  of 
his  birth,  but  as  the  great  creative  genius,  as  the 
historical  refashioner  and  rebuilder  of  Judaism, 
and  it  behooves  particularly  the  Hebrew  Union 
College,  upon  whose  banner  American  Reform 
Judaism  is  inscribed,  to  solemnly  celebrate  his  cen- 
tenary. 

There  are  many  in  these  days  who  say:  Religion 
should  come  as  a  heavenly  message  of  peace,  fostering 
love  and  good-will  among  men,  and  not  as  a  theology 
which  engenders  strife  and  division,  especially  at 
a  time  when  the  Jew  must  show  a  united  front 
against  his  aggressors.  They  who  speak  thus  from 
pulpit  and  platform,  through  the  press  and  from 
among  the  people,  fail  to  realize  that  Israel's  God  is 
a  God  of  truth,  who  can  not  be  bribed  by  gifts  or 
works  of  philanthropy;  that  Israel's  creed  Shema 
Yisrael!  is  the  battle-cry  of  heroes  who  fought, 
bled  and  died  for  the  truth  as  it  lived  in  their  inner- 
most conviction,  and  that  the  same  fire  which  burned 
in  an  Elijah,  an  Amos  and  an  Isaiah  created  both 
the  martyrs  and  the  sages  of  the  middle  age  who 
also  gave  their  life  and  all  for  their  faith,  and  the 


ABRAHAM  GEIGER  85 


Reformers  of  our  own  day,  whose  life  was  one  of 
continuous  trial  and  peril  and  martyrdom,  like  that 
of  the  prophets  of  old. 

Of  all  those  brave  battlers  for  spiritual  freedom 
and  intellectual  honesty  Geiger,  was  the  first  to  en- 
counter the  hatred,  the  anathema  and  the  persecu- 
tion of  orthodoxy.  But  what  made  him  great  was  not 
so  much  the  war-cry  he  raised  against  hypocrisy 
and  hollow  formalism,  nor  the  battle  array  he  formed 
in  marshaling  all  the  forces  of  Reform,  nor  even  the 
reforms  he  introduced  and  proposed,  which,  after 
all,  remained  but  half-measures  compared  with  what 
his  fellow-champions  and  particularly  the  American 
Reform  pioneers  did.  Geiger's  real  and  lasting 
greatness  consisted  in  that,  while  he  laid  bare  the  sore 
wounds  which  showed  Judaism  to  be  in  a  perilous 
state,  he  as  a  true  diagnostician  pointed  out  both 
the  cause  of  the  disease  and  the  method  of  its  cure. 
He  felt  the  pulse-beat,  heard  the  heart-throbs  be- 
neath all  the  formations  and  transformations  and 
even  the  deformations,  and,  like  Elijah,  declared 
to  the  despairing  mother:  Behold,  thy  child  liveth! 

He  was  not,  as  Prof.  Adler  said  the  other  day, 
a  mere  critic  who  stopped  at  the  negation  of  the  old. 
He  was  most  positive  in  his  assertion  that  Judaism, 
when  purified  of  its  dross  and  cleared  of  its  debris,  was 
sure  to  win  the  world  for  its  truth,  as  humanity's 
faith.  His  was  a  constructive  mind,  and  as  a  historian 
of  great  divinatory  power,  he  knew  how  to  pene- 
trate into  the  deeper  forces  of  religious  and  social 
life  and  trace  their  origin  and  growth.  He  voiced  the 
threefold  message  of  the  age  for  the  Jew:  Evolution, 
Regeneration  and  Historic  Continuity. 


86  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


This  was  far  more  than  the  emancipation  wrought 
by  Moses  Mendelssohn  and  the  renaissance  effected 
by  Leopold  Zunz. 

Mendelssohn  led  modern  Israel  out  of  the  house 
of  Egyptian  bondage,  but  his  land  of  promise  offered 
no  spiritual  freedom.  Belonging  to  the  school  of 
cosmopolitan  deists,  he  lacked  the  historical  sense, 
the  insight  into  the  laws  of  human  progress,  and 
hence,  like  Maimonides,  he  believed  in  the  im- 
mutability of  the  whole  Mosaic  system  of  laws  and 
ceremonies.  Yet  when  his  shallow  rationalism  was 
swept  away  by  the  "Critik  der  reinen  Vernunft"  of 
Immanuel  Kant,  the  Robespierre  of  the  Mental 
Revolution,  as  he  was  called,  and  the  inrushing  tide 
of  the  new  culture  carried  the  Ghetto  Jew,  bewildered 
and  dazed,  out  into  the  maelstrom  of  a  humanity 
that  knew  of  no  bounds  nor  barriers,  all  hope  of 
Judaism  seemed  gone;  and  apostasy  and  assimilation 
became  the  watchword  of  the  enlightened. 

The  American  painter,  Sargent,  in  his  famous, 
though  unhistorical,  fresco  of  Moses  and  the  Proph- 
ets in  the  Boston  Library,  portrays  the  Hebrew  law- 
giver as  a  grand,  imposing  figure,  yet  immovable 
as  a  rock.  Such  was  indeed  the  traditional  concept 
of  the  Mosaic  Law.  It  was  believed  to  have  come 
forth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  on  Mount  Sinai  all 
finished  in  its  dual  character,  written  and  oral,  fixed 
and  unchangeable  for  all  time.  Altered  conditions 
could  at  best  suspend,  but  never  abolish  or  alter 
one  iota.  Was  it  possible,  then,  that  this  four  thous- 
and years'  structure  should  fall  before  the  furious 
storm  that  ushered  in  the  new  era,  without  burying 
all  the  faithful  beneath  its  ruins? 


ABRAHAM  GEIGER  87 


It  was  a  well-meant  and  laudable  endeavor  on 
the  part  of  the  early  reformers,  such  as  Israel  Jacob- 
son,  Solomon  and  Kley,  to  check  the  growing  tide 
by  removing  the  repulsive  features  of  the  old  synagog 
and  putting  the  venerable  matron  in  a  more  attrac- 
tive attire  borrowed  from  the  church,  by  introducing 
innovations  such  as  confirmation,  the  organ  and 
choir,  and  the  sermon  in  the  vernacular.  But  such 
aesthetic  reforms  could  not  conceal  from  the  thinking 
Jew  the  inner  discord.  The  pillars  of  the  faith  were 
tottering  and  tumbling;  the  whole  Law,  Mosaic  or 
Rabbinical,  the  Sabbath,  the  Dietary  and  Purity  laws 
were  broken  and  set  aside.  Could  moralizing  ser- 
mons after  Protestant  fashion  without  a  spark  of 
Jewish  sentiment  and  thought,  of  which  also  Zunz 
published  a  volume  of  little  depth,  heal  the  breach 
between  life  and  the  Law,  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice? 

In  this  deluge  of  destruction  Zunz  stepped  to 
the  fore,  another  Noah  with  his  ark.  "Let  us  build 
up,"  he  cried,  "die  Wissenschaft,  the  scientific  lore 
of  Judaism,  and  we  shall  not  perish  in  the  flood." 
His  crew,  the  members  of  the  Juedische  Kulturverein 
he  had  formed,  were  overtaken  by  the  flood,  but  he, 
the  boatman,  remained  true  to  his  "grossmuethige 
Grille,"  as  Heine  says,  and  he  became  the  regenerator 
of  Jewish  literature,  he  in  common  with  his  three 
compeers,  Krochmal,  Rappaport  and  Luzzatto.  With 
his  stupendous  learning  and  wondrous  mastership 
he  cut  a  path  through  the  impenetrable  forest  of  a 
three  thousand  years'  literature,  and  revealed  to  the 
astonished  world  order,  system  and  growth,  where 
all  seemed  but  confusion  and  stagnation.  Especially 


88  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


did  his  master-work,  "Die  Gottesdienstliche  Vor- 
traege,  of  1832,  impress  the  learned  youth,  as  Geiger 
writes,  "like  a  mighty  fructifying  torrent  falling 
upon  a  parched  soil  to  stimulate  everywhere  new 
thought  and  new  effort."  Still,  the  great  pathfinder 
fell  short  of  the  expectations  he  had  aroused.  He 
failed  to  touch  the  deeper  forces  and  light  up  the 
inner  process  of  Judaism.  As  the  majestic  river 
Rhine  is  lost  in  the  sand  of  the  Dutch  lowlands,  so 
were  Zunz's  gigantic  efforts  lost  in  a  dry-as-dust 
erudition  which  registered  names  and  dates,  and  was, 
as  Geiger  writes,  concerned  more  with  dead  formulas 
and  tombstone  inscriptions  than  with  the  living  faith 
of  living  Israel.  Buried  among  dust-covered  folios, 
he  lost  hold  of  life,  and  life  of  him.  He  became 
embittered,  a  hater  of  the  Reform  he  had  espoused, 
and  a  vilifier  of  Reformers,  an  advocate  of  obso- 
lete rites  and  practices  he  himself  had  discarded, 
despite  the  fact  that  he  assigned  to  the  books  of 
Moses  a  post-exilic  origin  far  beyond  that  of  the 
most  radical  critics.  He  became  a  Baal  Teshubah,  a 
retrogressionist,  and,  as  Geiger's  scathing  review 
of  his  later  work,  "Zur  Geschichte  und  Literatur," 
points  out,  a  Nationalist. 

For  the  great  work  of  Israel's  religious  emancipa- 
tion from  the  thraldom  of  blind  letter  and  authority- 
worship  and  the  rebuilding  of  Judaism  upon  the  solid 
ground  work  of  modern  thought  and  modern  research, 
Providence  had  singled  out  a  man  of  a  different  cast 
of  mind,  a  man  fully  abreast  of  the  achievements  and 
aims,  the  ideas  and  ideals  of  the  age,  and  filled  with 
an  unquenchable  thirst  for  truth  and  for  righteous- 


ABRAHAM  GEIGER  89 


ness.  This  man  was  Abraham Geiger.  The  community 
of  Frankfort,  his  native  town,  was,  as  in  fact  it  still 
is,  rent  asunder  by  two  factions,  the  men  of  the 
Philanthropine  and  the  men  of  the  Klause,  radicals 
who  sneered  and  scoffed,  and  fanatics  and  blind 
followers  who  bewailed  and  deplored  the  new  state 
of  things.  Young  Geiger  stood  and  moved  between 
these  two  extremes.  His  father  and  first  teacher 
was  an  old-fashioned  orthodox  rabbi  who  died  after 
he  had  reached  his  14th  year.  But  Providence  would 
have  him  come  under  the  influence  of  Wolf  Heiden- 
heim,  the  fine  grammarian  and  text-critic,  for  his 
Bible  studies,  and  of  his  own  older  brother,  Solomon 
Geiger  for  the  study  of  the  Mishnah,  which  he 
learned  to  read  independently  of  the  Gemarah.  Thus 
he  at  once  acquired  a  historical  and  critical  method. 
At  the  same  time  access  to  the  secular,  the  historical 
and  classical  literature  awakened  in  the  precocious 
youth  doubt,  which  is  the  beginning  of  independent 
thought.  The  universities  of  Heidelberg  and  Bonn, 
whither  his  liberal  friends  urged  him  to  go  in  prepar- 
ation for  his  rabbinical  career,  failed  to  offer  him 
what  he  was  greatly  in  search  of,  a  clear  system  of 
thought,  or  Weltanschaung,  in  harmony  with  his 
aspirations  as  Jewish  theologian.  With  all  the  greater 
delight  he  devoted  his  energies  to  the  study  of  the 
Semitic  languages,  the  Arabic  and  the  Syriac,  by 
the  mastery  of  which  he  was  enabled  to  unlock  the 
hidden  treasures  of  Jewish,  Mohammedan  and  early 
Church  lore,  and  to  achieve  undreamt-of  triumphs 
in  the  field  of  religion  and  philosophy,  as  well  as 
philology.  The  prize  he  won  as  a  student  of  22  years 


90  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


by  his  essay  on  "What  Has  Mohammed  Drawn 
from  Judaism?"  at  once  manifested  the  wide  grasp 
of  his  intellect,  while  at  the  same  time  it  directed 
his  efforts  toward  a  broad  historical  survey  of  what 
Judaism  accomplished  as  mother  of  the  two  world- 
religions  and  of  many  systems  of  philosophy,  old 
and  new.  With  his  mental  horizon  thus  enlarged, 
the  former  Bible  and  Talmud  student  beheld  the 
teachings  of  the  synagog.  the  church  and  the  mosque, 
the  Scriptures  and  their  interpretations,  in  the  light 
of  historical  research  as  a  continuous  process  of  growth 
and  development.  He  had  thus  become  a  true  son  of 
the  nineteenth  century  which  endowed  man  with  a  new 
sense,  the  sense  of  historical  analysis  and  historical 
perception.  Just  as  before  the  scrutinizing  gaze  of  the 
geologist,  Mother  Earth  had  to  lay  bare  her  layers  of 
rock  to  give  account  of  the  various  geological  periods 
she  had  to  go  through  during  the  millions  of  years  of 
her  existence,  so  were  the  laws,  the  languages  and  the 
literatures  of  the  nations,  old  or  young,  examined 
one  after  the  other  as  to  their  kinship,  growth  and 
origin,  to  offer  a  deeper  insight  into  the  work-shop 
of  the  human  mind  and  elucidate  the  laws  governing 
all  social,  intellectual  and  spiritual  life.  Could 
Judaism  have  been  exempt  from  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion and  growth? 

To  this  painstaking  research  of  a  lifetime  Geiger 
consecrated  his  ingenious  powers  as  historian  and 
theologian.  With  fine  critical  acumen  he  learned 
to  distinguish  in  the  Mosaic  Law  and  Biblical  legend, 
in  the  Exilic  and  Post-exilic  literature,  in  the  Mish- 
naic,  the  Midrashic  and  Targumic  and  parallel 


ABRAHAM  GEICER  91 

groups  of  Halakic  and  Haggadic  interpretations  of 
Scripture  different  currents  and  forces,  different 
powers  and  potencies  of  religious  life  struggling  for 
the  dominion,  each  source  representing  another 
stratum  in  the  composition  and  formation  of  the 
whole:  the  nomadic  and  the  agricultural,  the 
Israelitic  and  the  Judaic  period,  prophet  and  priest, 
exilic  and  post-exilic  life,  each  having  left  its  imprint 
upon  the  Mosaic  code,  because  beneath  the  dead 
letter  there  had  been  surging  and  struggling  life. 
Particularly  was  Talmudic  Judaism,  thus  long  de- 
nounced and  condemned  alike  by  the  world,  the 
enlightened  modern  Jew  and  the  Christian  theo- 
logian, brought  out  by  him  in  an  altogether  new 
light.  He  rolled  off  the  shame,  the  curse  and  the  doom 
placed  by  the  New  Testament  upon  the  Pharisee, 
showing  him  to  have  been  animated  by  the  principle 
of  religious  democracy,  which  was  to  revitalize  the 
Law  and  invest  Jewish  life  with  new  sanctity.  In 
opposition  to  the  presumptuous  claim  of  the  Saddu- 
cean  priesthood,  Pharisaism  insisted  upon  the  priestly 
holiness  of  all  Israel  and  upon  its  possessorship  and 
guardianship  of  the  Law,  and,  in  order  to  justify 
this  title,  it  created  the  various  rites  and  ceremonies 
intended  to  sanctify  the  daily  life  of  the  Jew  at 
every  step.  Not  hypocrisy,  but  the  hallowing  of  life 
was  the  object  of  rabbinism  in  its  creative  state,  this 
was  the  revolutionizing  viewpoint  of  Geiger.  His  mas- 
ter-work, "Die  Urschrift  und  ihre  Uebersetzungen," 
in  the  year  1&57,  came  like  a  new  revelation.  It 
presented  the  proof  that  the  Torah,  the  written  and 
the  oral  Law,  far  from  having  remained  intact  and 


92  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


unaltered  throughout  the  centuries,  had  undergone 
change  and  transformation,  both  as  to  the  letter  and 
the  interpretation  of  the  same.  Because  the  Bible, 
the  Book  of  the  Law,  was  to  be  the  Law  of  Life, 
the  educator  and  fashioner  of  the  people,  it  had 
to  be  refashioned  and  remodeled  ever  anew  in 
conformity  with  the  prevailing  and  ever-advancing 
views  concerning  God  and  man. 

It  can  not  be  my  purpose  here  to  explain  in  detail 
Geiger's  views  of  the  Sadducees  and  Pharisees  and 
of  their  relations  to  the  Samaritans  and  Karaites, 
or  of  the  Mishnaic  and  Pre-Mishnaic  systems  of 
the  Halakah,  by  which  he  revolutionized  the  entire 
history  of  Judaism.  Let  me  only  state  that,  while 
they  were  rejected  and  ridiculed  by  his  opponents, 
chiefly  of  the  Breslau  school,  Schechter's  Genizah 
find  of  Ben  Sira  confirmed  Geiger's  theory  regarding 
the  rule  of  the  Sons  of  Zaddok  during  the  Second 
Temple;  Harkavy's  find  of  Anan's  Sefer  Ha  Mizwoth 
confirmed  Geiger's  statement  of  the  relationship 
between  the  Sadducees  and  the  Karaites,  and  Halevy's 
find  of  a  work  by  the  Falashas  on  the  Sabbath  con- 
firmed Geiger's  explanation  of  Shebuth  as  a  rigid 
Sabbath  prohibition  of  the  old  Halakah,  with  the 
penalty  of  death  upon  its  transgression. 

So  were  all  the  Jewish  rites,  festivals  and  insti- 
tutions shown  by  Geiger's  critical  and  historical 
investigations  to  have  undergone  a  continuous 
alteration  and  transformation.  They  had  to  be 
changed,  because  life  changed.  Neither  could  the 
views  and  doctrines  concerning  God  and  man, 
Israel  and  humanity  remain  the  same,  because  the 
world-view  never  remained  the  same. 


ABRA HA  M  GEIGER  93 

Here,  then,  was  given  for  all  time  the  basis 
for  reform,  for  a  reform  from  within,  not  from 
without,  and  that  is  Regeneration  and  Rejuvenation. 
As  the  earth  becomes  young  at  each  turn  of  the  year 
when  the  genial  sun  of  spring  beckons  the  hidden 
seeds  of  the  soil  to  burst  forth  into  beautiful  verdure 
and  luxuriant  growth,  where  winter's  frost  had  caused 
isolation  and  barrenness  before;  as  the  tree  covers 
itself  anew  with  green  foliage  and  produces  sweet 
fruitage,  after  the  storm  and  the  tempest  have  cast 
off  the  dried  leaves  and  the  withered  branches;  so 
Judaism.  It  is  a  living  tree,  a  vital  truth,  and  when 
the  storm  of  destruction  carries  off  the  lifeless  forms, 
all  the  dead  wood  that  hinders  its  fresh  growth, 
it  means  new  life  and  greater  expansion.  Then  it 
behooves  the  true  guardian  to  separate  the  precious 
from  the  worthless,  the  essential  from  the  transient, 
the  kernel  from  the  shell,  the  gold  from  the  dross, 
in  order  to  bring  out  to  greater  efficiency  and  potency 
the  eternal  truth,  the  vitalizing  forces  of  Judaism. 
For  this  very  crisis  of  the  time  is  to  cause  Judaism 
to  enter  upon  a  new  stage  greater  than  the  stage  of 
either  Rabbinism  or  that  of  Sadducean  Mosaism 
was,  a  stage  on  which  with  its  lofty  world-conquering 
truths  it  is  destined  to  wield  still  greater  power  and 
influence  on  a  larger  humanity  bent,  with  all  its 
intellectual  and  social  powers,  to  free  itself  from  the 
trammels  of  church  dogma  and  the  burden  of  a  soul- 
less ceremonialism.  Away,  then  with  the  excrescences 
and  deformities  of  Ghetto  life!  Away  with  all  the 
laws  and  the  practices  that  disgrace  Judaism,  dis- 
figure the  Jew  and  degrade  the  Jewess!  Away  with 


94  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Oriental  barbarism,  with  the  hollowness  of  formalism, 
with  hypocrisy  of  official  rabbidom!  Thus  sounded 
the  war-tocsin,  the  battle-cry  of  the  25-year-old 
rabbi  of  Wiesbaden,  as  he  rallied  the  foremost 
scholars  and  liberal  rabbis  around  him  in  his  "Wis- 
senschaftliche  Zeitschrift  fur  Juedische  Theologie," 
and  his  call  to  Breslau  two  years  afterward,  with  the 
Tiktin  controversy  that  ensued,  made  him  the  central 
figure  of  the  whole  Reform  movement  in  Germany. 
But  while  waging  war  for  continuous  progress 
and  absolutely  free  research,  he  accentuated  on  every 
occasion  the  principle  of  historical  continuity.  He  be- 
lieved in  evolution,  not  in  revolution;  he  wanted  a 
wholesome  growth,  of  the  whole,  not  a  breaking 
away  to  injure  the  development,  not  a  secession 
and  isolation.  He  insisted  on  his  title  as  rabbi 
instead  of  Reform  preacher;  he  would  not  be  leader 
of  a  pronounced  Reform  temple,  nor  of  a  Sunday- 
Sabbath  congregation.  He  loved  Holdheim  for  his 
outspokenness  and  sincerity,  and  preached  the 
funeral  sermon  over  him,  but  neither  endorsed  his 
radical  views,  nor  accepted  the  position  vacated  by 
his  death.  Instead  of  being  a  Christianizer,  as  the 
Reformers  are  called  by  the  retrogressionists,  Geiger 
was  the  most  persistent,  the  most  outspoken  and  the 
most  dreaded  antagonist  of  official  Christianity.  He 
opposed  the  Sunday-Sabbath  as  a  concession  to  the 
Church.  No  one  contested  the  right  of  the  Church 
to  claim  for  herself  the  title  and  privilege  of  the  new 
and  higher  truth  as  forcefully  as  he  did.  No  one 
challenged  the  authorities  of  Christendom  to  verify 
its  presumptuous  assertions  concerning  the  inferior- 


ABRA  HA  M  GEICER  95 


ity  of  Judaism  in  bolder  language  than  he.  To  him 
Judaism  was  not  a  truth,  but  the  truth,  not  a  system 
of  dead  beliefs  and  practices,  but  spiritual  life, 
ever  unfolding  and  expanding,  ever  progressing  and 
advancing,  until  its  essence  has  permeated  humanity 
in  realization  of  the  Messianic  ideal,  a  process  of 
development  ever  moved  on  by  the  spirit  of  history, 
the  divine  spirit  ruling  man  in  the  various  ages. 
Denouncing  the  narrow  spirit  of  theological  semina- 
ries, which  set  dams  and  bars  to  free  inquiry,  and 
especially  the  intellectual  dishonesty  and  the  indul- 
gence in  casuistry  such  as  prevailed  in  the  Breslau 
school,  he  gave  utterance  to  the  following  striking 
remark:  "A  religion  of  the  minority  which  must 
rely  solely  on  its  own  strength  to  be  of  power  and 
influence,  can  maintain  itself  only  when  keeping 
itself  on  the  very  heights  of  mental  and  spiritual 
life,  forming  the  vanguard  in  the  battle  of  the  intel- 
lect, and  strong  enough  by  its  intrinsic  solidity,  its 
true  inwardness  and  perfect  freedom  of  thought  to 
wrest  recognition  from  the  world  around."  "Only 
an  institution  of  Jewish  learning  that  remains  in 
touch  with  the  university  spirit  of  free  research, 
can  truly  promote  and  embody  Jewish  thought." 

Judaism,  he  says,  on  another  occasion,  is  not  a 
tragedy,  a  thing  to  weep  over.  Even  the  tragic 
middle  ages  enclosed  a  great  idea  modern  time  has 
to  unfold.  The  great  drama  of  history  is  not  closed. 
Only  the  last  act  can  tell,  and  we  live  and  hope  and 
wait.  The  joy  of  optimism  must  be  echoed  forth 
in  the  synagog  and  the  home  of  the  Jew. 

Such  were  the  views  of  Geiger,  who  lives  in  all 
that  modern  Judaism,  Reform  or  Conservative,  has 


96  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

accomplished  ever  since.  Without  Geiger  neither 
Frankel  nor  Graetz  could  have  done  what  they  did. 
Nor  did  Geiger  overlook  the  needs  of  a  revival  of 
domestic  devotion  in  the  Jewish  home;  a  revival,  not 
a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  he  wanted.  Time  forbids 
me  to  dwell  on  what  he  did  as  preacher — and  a  power- 
ful preacher  he  was — or  as  practical  reformer,  as  his- 
torian and  critic,  or  as  translator  of  the  medieval 
poets — and  a  fine  classical  style  he  had  as  writer — 
whether  in  Hebrew  or  in  German — or  finally  as 
theologian  at  the  Berlin  Hochschule.  In  fertility 
and  richness  of  mind,  in  scientific  depth  and  accuracy, 
in  range  of  knowledge  and  mental  grasp,  as  well  as 
indefatigable  industry,  he  had  no  equal,  unless  you 
go  back  to  Maimonides  as  his  peer.  There  was  no 
field  of  Jewish  literature  and  thought  which  he 
did  not  enrich,  enlarge  and  deepen.  His  works  are 
an  inexhaustible  mine  of  knowledge  and  of  sug- 
gestiveness  to  the  student.  As  it  is  said  of  Moses, 
his  eyes  became  not  dim,  and  his  freshness  of  mind 
did  not  abate.  His  enthusiasm  and  zeal  for  Judaism's 
truth  kept  him  young,  until  death  lulled  the  great 
worker  to  sleep  in  his  64th  year.  And  greater  than 
the  scholar,  the  writer  and  preacher  was  the  man, 
the  kindliest,  the  most  lovable  and  most  genial 
personality;  his  mind  bright  as  steel,  his  heart  of  the 
purest  gold. 

When  the  Pharaonic  edict  had  gone  out  con- 
demning the  Hebrew  youth  to  die  in  the  water,  the 
precious  life  of  the  infant  Moses  was  saved  by  Pha- 
raoh's own  daughter,  who  took  him  out  of  the  ark 
of  bulrushes  floating  on  the  water  and  placed  him 


ABRAHAM  GEIGER  97 


under  her  fostering  care;  but  there  stood  the  sister 
of  Moses  ready  to  call  Jochebed  in  order  to  nurture 
the  future  law-giver  of  Israel  with  the  milk  of  the 
Jewish  mother.  So  did  Abraham  Geiger  call  the 
spirit  of  Jewish  history  to  impart  the  nutritious 
essence  of  Jewish  life  and  Jewish  thought  and  Jewish 
consciousness  to  Reform,  in  order  to  render  it  a  true 
saving  power  for  modern  Judaism. 

"Let  them  who  antagonize  me  curse;  Thou,  O 
God,  wilt  bless,"  Geiger  said,  and  he  became  a  bles- 
sing, a  source  of  light  and  of  inspiration  to  many. 
May  his  spirit,  his  example  and  his  life-work  ever 
inspire  us  in  our  work  for  the  cause  of  God,  of  Israel 
and  humanity!  Amen. 


10. 
THE  PEACE  MISSION  OF  JUDAISM.* 


peace  have  they  that  love  Thy  law,  O 
God,  and  there  is  no  stumbling  unto  them." 
These  words  of  the  Psalmist  I  offer  as  a  greeting  at 
the  formal  opening  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College. 
There  is  a  remarkable  passage  found  in  the  Midrash 
Tanhuma  with  reference  to  this  verse.  "God's  cove- 
nant with  heaven  and  earth  rests  upon  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Torah  in  Israel.  And  so  twelve  years 
previous  to  the  destruction  of  the  Holy  City  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  God  sent  heroic  men  of  the  law  in  the 
company  of  King  Jekoniah  to  Babylonia  as  pioneers, 
that  they  might  there  lay  the  foundations  of  the  two 
great  Academies,  which  were  to  remain  intact  for 
all  the  centuries  amidst  all  the  hostilities  of  war,  of 
persecution  and  captivity,  so  as  to  be  the  central 
seats  of  the  Torah,  abodes  of  the  Shekinah  until  the 
very  beginning  of  the  Messianic  time.  Yea,  even  the 
last  great  war  that  precedes  the  advent  of  the  Messiah 
should  not  hurt  nor  affect  them.  No  stumbling  will 
come  to  their  peaceful  occupation."  —  This  providen- 
tial task,  this  glorious  privilege  claimed  here  for  the 
Babylonian  academies  we  proudly  claim  for  our 
American  institutions  of  learning. 

*Address  delivered  at  the  re-opening  of  the  College,  September, 
1914. 


100          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Throughout  Europe  and  Asia  there  rages  since 
months  a  world-war  of  unprecedented  fury  and 
savagery.  The  seminaries  of  Berlin,  Breslau,  Vienna 
and  Budapest  and  the  Yeshiboth  of  Russia  and 
Galicia,  I  understand,  are  closed,  because  teachers 
and  students  are  for  the  most  part  engaged  in  the 
cruel  fight  of  the  nations  and  races  against  each  other. 
Our  blessed  land  of  freedom  has,  thanks  to  the  Most 
High,  been  spared,  and  our  schools  and  colleges 
continue  undisturbed  their  educational  pursuits. 
So  do  we,  under  the  divine  guidance,  open  our  dear 
institution  under  the  most  favorable  auspices  for 
the  sacred  work  of  the  year.  O,  what  a  great  incentive 
for  us!  What  a  great  responsibility  to  see  to  it  that 
— as  is  said  in  the  passage  quoted  with  regard  to 
the  Babylonian  academies — "the  study  of  the  Tor  ah 
may  not  be  neglected  in  our  land." 

But,  dear  Colleagues  and  Students,  there  is  a 
deeper  truth  conveyed  to  us  by  the  Psalm  verse 
selected.  Behold,  all  the  classes  and  circles  of 
society,  the  industrial  and  commercial  and  social 
and  political  world  is  everywhere  disturbed  and 
shaken  up  to  the  core  by  this  terrible  war,  whereas 
a  benign  Providence  has  assigned  to  us  a  vocation 
of  peace.  "The  disciples  of  the  Torah,"  our  sages 
say,  "are  entrusted  with  the  task  of  strengthening 
the  forces  of  peace  in  the  world.  For  we  read:  'All 
thy  children  shall  be  taught  of  the  Lord,  and  then 
great  shall  be  the  peace  of  thy  children'  " — of  those 
who  are  to  build  up  the  world's  welfare  by  their 
idealism,  their  spiritual  endeavors. 

You  hear  and  read  so  much  in  these  days  of  the 
Peace  Mission  of  Judaism,  and,  indeed,  I  could, 


JUDAISM'S  PEACE  MISSION  101 

and  so  could  you,  quote  many  Scriptural  or  Talmudic 
passages  to  verify  this  claim.  But  have  you  really 
considered  what  this  peace  mission  means  and  implies? 
Can  it  mean  that  we  as  Jews  should  simply  point 
to  the  familiar  Messianic  prophecy  of  Isaiah  an- 
nouncing in  inimitable  classic  sentences  the  time  of 
universal  peace  when  "the  nations  will  learn  war  no 
more"  and  "wolf  and  lamb  will  dwell  together  in 
concord,"  and  for  the  rest  shrink,  or  encourage  our 
brethren  to  shrink,  from  participating  as  patriots 
in  the  battles  fought  by  the  nations  in  whose  lands 
they  live,  for  the  honor  and  greatness  of  their  country 
in  the  light  in  which  they  see  it?  Why,  look  at 
Abraham  our  ancestor!  He  fought  nobly  for  his  coun- 
try when  it  was  assailed  by  the  northern  foe,  dis- 
playing valor  and  generosity  in  carrying  away  booty 
and  giving  it  back  to  the  king  of  Sodom.  And 
this  example  of  patriotic  heroism  was  followed  by 
the  Jew  everywhere,  not  merely  in  Palestine,  the 
land  he  owned,  but  no  less  so  in  Babylonia,  where 
at  the  time  of  Rab  and  Samuel,  Jew  stood  against 
Jew  siding  with  one  dynasty  or  the  other;  and  their 
loyalty  to  either  was  recognized  by  those  very  mas- 
ters of  Jewish  lore.  And  so  throughout  history  in 
every  land  in  which  he  lived,  the  Jew  won  laurels 
for  bravery  as  soldier  and  patriot.  Whether  in  the 
old  hemisphere  or  in  the  new,  whether  under  a  liberal 
or  a  despotic  government,  he  stood  in  the  front 
rank  of  those  who  battled  heroically  for  the  country 
to  which  he  owed  allegiance.  And  to-day  even  the 
Zionist,  I  am  told,  feels  the  throbbing  of  the  heart 
for  the  land  of  his  birth  and  culture,  and  proudly 
offers  his  service  to  fight  or  to  die  for  its  flag,  be  it 


102  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


that  of  Germany  and  Austria  or  that  of  Russia, 
France  and  England.  Yet  who  dares  withhold  the 
tribute  of  admiration  from  the  Jew  for  such  display 
of  loyalty  in  these  trying  days,  or  lessen  the  patriotic 
ardor  in  the  one  or  the  other  fellow-Jew? 

Not  in  the  political  field  or  direction  lies  the 
peace-mission  of  the  Jew.  What  then  is  the  peace- 
mission  of  Judaism?  When  the  Lord  appeared  to 
Israel  on  Sinai  amidst  thunder  and  lightning  and 
earthquake,  the  Midrash  tells,  the  nations  were  in 
fear,  lest  another  deluge  of  water  or  fire  was  to  come 
and  sink  the  earth  back  into  chaos;  but  when  they 
heard  the  words  of  the  Decalogue  ring  forth  in 
seventy  languages,  they  exclaimed:  "The  Lord  is 
endowing  His  people  with  power;  He  blesses  them 
with  the  instrument  of  peace."  The  Torah  is  the 
world's  instrument  of  peace.  Let  us  see  how!  "God 
maketh  peace  in  His  heavenly  heights" — This  is 
explained  by  the  rabbis  as  follows:  There  are  the 
angelic  powers,  the  elements  of  fire  and  water,  the 
forces  of  light  and  darkness,  of  growth  and  decay, 
of  life  and  death  in  perpetual  conflict  with  one  an- 
other, but  God  establishes  peace  among  them  by 
bringing  them  into  harmonious  relations  to  each 
other.  Man,  too,  composed  as  he  is  of  heavenly  and 
earthly  elements,  of  upward  and  downward  striving 
forces,  must  know  how  to  establish  harmony  and 
peace  among  them.  When  man  was  to  emanate 
from  the  hands  of  the  great  Creator,  we  are  told, 
there  was  dissension  in  the  angelic  council.  Love 
and  Kindness  favored  the  plan,  saying:  "Create 
him,  O  Master  of  the  World,  for  he  is  kind  and 
merciful."  But  the  spirit  of  Truth  said:  "No,  he  is 


JUDAISM'S  PEACE. MISSION  103 

full  of  lying  and  falsehood."  Likewise  the  spirit  of 
Peace  said:  "No,  create  him  not,  he  is  full  of  quarrel- 
ing and  strife."  Then  God  seized  Truth  and  cast 
it  down  to  the  earth,  exclaiming:  "Let  Truth  grow 
forth  from  the  earth  ascending  ever  higher  and 
higher,  while  Righteousness  looketh  down  from  heaven. 
So  will  Kindness  and  Truth  meet,  Righteousness  and 
Peace  blend — in  man."  Here  you  have  the  function 
of  peace  assigned  to  the  law.  The  beast  in  man 
must  be  subordinated  to  the  divine.  The  lower 
passions  must  be  put  under  t"he  control  of  the  higher 
aspirations  of  the  soul.  Truth,  Justice  and  Peace 
belong  inseparably  together.  Without  truth  and 
justice  there  can  be  no  real  peace. 

When,  1900  years  ago,  Christianity  entered  the 
world  with  the  proclamation  of  peace  and  good-will 
to  men  on  earth  through  the  advent  of  its  "Prince  of 
Peace,"  it  was  bound  to  fail,  because  it  did  not  provide 
for  truth  and  justice  as  the  firm  foundations  of  peace. 
The  truth  of  monotheism  had  at  the  very  beginning, 
as  the  most  recent  researches  show,  to  enter  a  com- 
promise with  polytheism.  Justice  was  frustrated 
by  such  doctrines  as  "Resist  not  evil!"  and  "If  one 
smite  thee  on  the  right  cheek,  offer  him  also. the 
other!"  Peace  was  made  with  heaven  by  the  sur- 
render of  the  earth  to  the  worldly  powers,  and  thus 
Christianity  became  a  religion  of  other-worldliness. 
Instead  of  uniting  mankind,  it  divided  it  into  hostile 
sects,  into  such  as  would  be  saved  and  such  as  are 
forever  doomed.  Hence  love  was  turned  into  hatred, 
and,  instead  of  peace,  strife,  warfare  and  persecution 
became  the  ruling  passion  of  the  centuries.  Now,  when 
at  last  the  medieval  spirit  was  exhausted  and  the 


104  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

modern  era  brought  about  a  reaction  and  new  condi- 
tions of  life,  the  pendulum  swung  from  one  extreme 
to  the  other.  Other-worldliness  made  room  for  mere 
worldliness,  illusive  idealism  for  gross  materialism, 
religious  fanaticism  for  one-sided  intellectualism,  and 
Church  discipline  for  unbridled  individualism.  And 
here  you  have  the  very  root  of  all  the  evils  from  which 
our  so-called  enlightened  age  labors,  and  which  have 
found  their  terrible  culmination  in  this  world-con- 
flagration, the  breakdown  of  our  much  boasted  civil- 
ization. For  it  is  the  passion  for  wealth,  for  industrial 
and  commercial  aggrandizement  that  has  engendered 
and  fanned  all  the  jealousy,  hatred  and  strife  existing 
between  the  classes  and  masses,  between  the  nations 
and  races.  And  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  false 
culture-ideal,  the  overweening  pride  of  intellectual- 
ism  which  has  created  new  codes  of  ethics  for  the 
superman,  new  rules  of  conduct  for  the  would-be 
superior  races,  and  has  sown  the  seeds  of  discord  and 
prejudice  everywhere  among  men,  so  as  to  make  them 
cast  the  fear  of  God  and  the  love  for  fellowman  to 
the  winds.  Notwithstanding  all  the  wondrous 
achievements  of  science  and  industry  working  for 
the  .ever  closer  union  and  brotherhood  of  man,  we 
see  to-day  but  the  fiercest  passions  and  furies  of  the 
beast  rage,  and  despite  all  theoretical  or  practical 
altruism,  man  is  further  away  than  ever  from  his 
brother-man.  Whence,  then,  shall  come  the  real, 
the  lasting  peace  to  grieving  humanity?  This  is  the 
great  concern  of  us  all. 

Now,  it  is  not  mere  phraseology  nor  mere  self- 
delusion,  if  I  say  that  this  great  crisis  in  the  history 
of  mankind  is  the  great  opportunity  for  Judaism,  if 


JUDAISM'S  PEACE  MISSION  105 

we  would  but  realize  it  and  courageously  step  forth 
to  point  out  to  an  anxious  world  the  path  of  peace. 
The  world  is  in  need  of  new  valuations,  new  standards, 
new  ideals  of  life;  and  none  can  offer  them  with  greater 
power  and  authority  than  he  who  can  draw  from  the 
rich  storehouse  of  Jewish  lore  and  wisdom.  Ever 
since  we  have  ceased  to  be  a  political  nation,  if  not 
long  before,  Judaism  lost  its  annals  of  war,  pointing 
to  the  schoolhouse  as  the  true  armory  for  its  battles 
and  for  its  ammunition.  The  hand  that  is  stained 
with  blood,  David  was  told,  can  not  build  the  temple 
of  God,  whose  name  is  Peace.  Iron,  the  weapon  of 
destruction,  must  not  rear  an  altar  to  the  God  of 
life  and  happiness,  the  law  declares. 

The  sword  was  given  to  Esau  to  live  by;  Israel's 
watchword  is:  "Not  by  numerical  strength  and 
physical  might,  but  by  My  spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of 
Hosts."  Our  warfare  is  that  of  the  spirit,  and  our 
sword,  the  God  of  truth.  Religion  for  the  Jew  is 
not  an  insurance  policy  for  the  world  to  come,  but  the 
hallowing  of  this  world,  of  the  whole  of  life  here. 
Nor  is  it  a  contempt  for,  or  mistrust  of,  reason  and 
free  research,  but  a  harmonious  blending  of  mind  and 
heart-culture,  peace  between  faith  and  free-thought. 
Again,  its  practical  aim  is  not  condescending  charity, 
love  at  the  expense  of  justice,  nor  generous  altruism, 
which  implies  nobility  on  the  one  side  and  humiliation 
on  the  other,  but  mutualistic  righteousness,  the 
interdependence  of  rich  and  poor,  of  high  and  low 
upon  the  basis  of  true  fellowship,  of  universal  justice. 
Neither  does  Judaism  set  up  creed  or  color  or  race 
as  barrier  between  man  and  man;  but,  beginning 
with  the  first  man  and  pointing  to  the  united  family 


106  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


of  man  as  the  end,  it  wants  to  have  all  men,  nations, 
classes  and  creeds  united  in  the  one  covenant  of  peace, 
of  which  the  rainbow  in  the  clouds  after  the  flood  is 
the  symbol,  betokening  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth  for  humanity.  Each  day,  therefore,  the  Jew 
prays  for  the  speedy  establishment  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  not  in  heaven,  but  on  earth,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  each  year  his  prayers  go  forth  to  the 
throne  of  the  heavenly  Father,  not  for  the  Jew  alone 
but  for  the  bond  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  This 
is  the  peace  doctrine,  this  is  the  peace  mission  of  the 
Jew. 

Yet,  in  order  to  be  able  to  fulfill  this  mission  of 
peace,  in  order  successfully  to  offer  the  world  the 
new  valuations,  the  new  standards,  the  new  ideals 
of  life  demanded  these  days,  the  Jew  must  undergo 
a  great  transformation  himself.  In  this  age  of 
rationalism  he  must  again  become  a  pattern  of 
reverential  piety  and  render  holiness  his  ideal  of 
life.  Amidst  the  pursuits  of  wealth,  amidst  the 
materialistic  tendencies  of  the  time  he  must  again 
become  the  banner-bearer  of  idealism,  and  verify 
by  this  life  the  claim  that  the  spirit  of  prophet  and 
sage  and  martyr  still  lives  in  him;  that  he  embodies, 
indeed,  the  kingdom  of  priests  and  the  holy  nation 
for  which  he  was  chosen  by  Providence.  Then  only 
can  he  influence  the  world,  if,  while  living  in  and  for 
the  world,  God,  whose  herald  he  claims  to  be,  again 
becomes  the  hallowing  force  of  his  life. 

Whence  shall  this  new  spirit  come  to  the  Jew, 
whence  the  belief  in  his  great  world-mission,  whence 
the  love  and  zeal  for  this  mighty  religious  task  with 
which  Israel  has  been  entrusted  for  all  the  ages,  if 


JUDAISM'S  PEACE  MISSION  107 


not  from  the  pulpit,  if  not  from  the  rabbi,  the  Jewish 
preacher?  The  Jewish  teacher  and  leader  must  be 
aglow  with  faith  in  the  God  he  preaches,  in  the  mission 
he  proclaims.  He  must  burn  with  enthusiasm  and 
love,  with  zeal  and  devotion  for  the  sublime,  yet  simple 
truth  he  is  to  utter,  or  else  he  can  not  inspire  others 
with  faith  and  true  idealism.  Unless  his  own  life  is 
adorned  with  the  beauty  of  holiness,  how  should 
he  be  able  to  beautify  and  hallow  the  life  of  others? 
The  man  in  the  pulpit  must  be  a  man  of  power  of 
mind  and  heart,  of  firmness  in  faith. 

And  here  comes  the  important  lesson,  the  power- 
ful monition  to  you,  dear  students  who  prepare  for 
the  Jewish  ministry.  We  are  all  in  our  theological 
studies  to-day  under  the  influence  of  historical  and 
critical  research,  which  appeals  exclusively  to  reason 
and  offers  so  little  for  the  nurture  of  the  soul,  the 
emotional  and  spiritual  side.  Just  in  the  very  years 
when  the  young  mind,  in  its  struggle  for  independence, 
is  open  to  skepticism,  teachings  and  books  are 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  student  that  tend 
to  unsettle  his  inherited  faith  and  to  bring  to  him 
disillusion,  disappointment  and  doubt;  and  there 
is  comparatively  little  presented  in  his  studies  that 
deepens  the  sentiment,  the  reverential  spirit  of  de- 
votion and  faith.  Against  all  these  perils  and  trials, 
these  pitfalls  and  stumbling  blocks  that  come  in 
the  way  of  the  very  best  of  students,  my  text  offers 
the  remedy:  "Great  peace  have  they  that  love 
Thy  law,  O  God,  and  there  is  no  stumbling  to  them." 
Love  for  the  ancestral  faith,  loyalty  to  the  God  of  the 
fathers,  culture  of  the  heart,  of  the  spring  of  emo- 
tions, is  necessary  as  a  counterbalance  to  all  the 


108  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

intellectual  efforts  your  studies  require  of  you,  in 
order  to  help  you  to  find  and  establish  the  true 
peace  within.  At  no  stage  of  your  progress  allow  the 
old  God  of  Israel,  the  daily  prayer,  the  holy  reverence 
for  the  divine  books  and  traditions,  to  lose  their 
hold  upon  you.  Let  no  day  pass  without  communion 
with  God  in  devotion  and  prayer,  without  a  new 
consecration  of  life  to  your  sacred  task,  without 
strengthening  of  the  powers  that  make  for  faith, 
for  reverence,  for  virtue  and  godliness.  Whatever 
doubts  or  scruples  you  may  have,  bring  them  before 
us — your  teachers  and  friends — so  that  we  may  help 
you;  and,  like  Abraham,  Moses  or  Job,  wrestle 
with  God  until  you,  too,  have  established  peace 
within  and  without. 

Let  me  close  with  another  beautiful  Midrashic 
comment  on  the  verse  quoted:  "All  thy  children 
shall  be  disciples  of  the  Lord,  and  great  shall  be  the 
peace  of  thy  children." — What  does  this  mean? 
As  long  as  people  derive  their  truth  from  mere  flesh 
and  blood,  there  may  be  misunderstanding  and 
difference  of  opinion  that  lead  to  dissension  and 
bitter  strife.  But  when  once  men  will  learn  the 
truth  from  God  himself,  because  He  dwells  in  their 
heart  and  mind  as  the  source  of  truth,  there  will  be 
but  peace  and  harmony  among  them  all,  because 
there  is  but  One  Truth,  One  Justice  and  One  Love." 

So  may  the  peace  of  God  dwell  in  your  hearts  and 
minds.  May  the  peace  of  God  come  to  us  all,  to  all 
men  and  nations  through  Israel  and  its  institutions 
of  learning,  through  our  American  land.  The  Lord 
give  strength  unto  His  people,  and  may  He  bless 
all  His  children  with  peace.  Amen. 


11. 

PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER.* 

RELIGION  stands  in  seeming  contrast  to  the 
tendencies  of  our  age.  The  former  is  pre- 
eminently the  feeling  of  dependence  upon  a  higher 
Power  and  submission  to  a  higher  Will,  whereas  the 
latter  strives  for  independence,  both  material  and 
intellectual,  and  tends  to  individualism,  the  asser- 
tion of  our  own  will  and  power.  Still,  such  is  due  to 
this  being  a  time  of  transition.  In  a  home  where 
parental  authority  is  chiefly  manifested  by  the  swing- 
ing of  the  rod,  by  frowning,  scolding  and  punishing, 
the  child  sighs  for  the  day  when  he  will  be  his  own 
master.  Thus,  having  for  centuries  felt  only  the 
leading-strings,  the  shackles  and  yoke  of  bondage 
with  which  religion  hampered  body  and  soul,  people 
naturally  crave  for  the  time  when  they  can  tear  off 
the  ropes  and  rid  themselves  of  the  burden.  But  this 
cannot  remain  thus  forever.  Sooner  or  later  they 
will  recognize  the  fact  that  the  old  ties  cannot  be 
severed  altogether.  We  do  not  make,  we  are  born 
into  those  relations  which  fashion  life  for  us.  We 
cannot  undo  our  own  past.  We  are  in  a  far  greater 
measure  the  children  of  yesterday  than  we  are  the 
fathers  of  to-morrow.  Our  socialistic  schemers,  who 

*Sunday   Discourse,  Temple  Beth  El,  New  York,  February  19, 
1888. 


110  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


are  eager  to  find  the  Archimedean  point  wherefrom 
to  unhinge  the  world,  learn  soon  enough  that,  unless 
they  fight  within  the  line,  they  can  never  obtain  a 
foothold.  No  Robinson  Crusoe  can  rear  a  society 
of  his  own,  unless  he  brings  the  inheritance  of  cen- 
turies in  his  arm  and  in  his  brain  along  to  his  island. 
The  household  gods  of  Troy  had  to  help  Aeneas  in 
laying  the  foundation  of  the  Roman  City.  You 
may  refuse  revering  the  sanctities  and  symbols  of 
religion,  but  you  can  as  little  escape  her  influence 
as  you  can  that  of  home  and  country.  She  received 
you  at  the  cradle,  and  will  hold  watch  over  your 
grave.  She  is  not  a  mere  theory,  but  a  life,  the 
concentrated  force  of  ages.  Advance  in  culture  may 
modify,  alter  and  improve  our  relation  to  the  great 
order  of  things  comprised  by  religion,  but  cannot 
uproot  it.  Education  and  erudition  may  place 
Ernest  Renan,  David  Friedrich  Strauss,  and  Heinrich 
Heine,  side  by  side  and  outside  of  the  pale  of  religion, 
still  the  divergency  between  the  Catholic,  the  Protes- 
tant and  the  Jew  goes  down  to  the  root  of  their  being. 
Apple,  pear,  and  cherry  tree  do  not  differ  only  in 
fruit,  blossom  and  leaf,  but  in  every  particle  of  their 
substance,  in  the  seed  and  the  cell.  Religion  is  an 
organic  growth.  You  and  I  cannot  make  nor  unmake 
it.  It  is  a  historical  power  which  shapes  and  sways 
us  unconsciously  as  sentiment  and  emotion,  and 
consciously  as  conviction  and  clearly  formulated 
opinion. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  I  see  religion  going  through 
three  stages  of  growth,  best  represented  by  Priest, 
Prophet,  and  Preacher  as  its  exponents. 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  111 

Last  century  rationalism  discredited  the  priest, 
denouncing  him  as  an  impostor.  The  reason  was 
that  religion  was  misunderstood.  Creeds  and  rituals 
were  held  to  be  inventions  of  shrewd  and  selfish 
hierarchical  despots  who,  speculating  on  the  frailties 
of  superstitious  multitudes,  imposed  on  them  certain 
modes  of  belief  and  worship  to  keep  them  in  utter 
subjection  and  ignorance,  while  they  reserved  all 
power  and  knowledge  for  themselves.  This  view  is 
no  longer  tenable  in  the  face  of  modern  research. 
Far  down  in  the  lower  strata  of  human  society  we  see 
primitive  man,  without  the  priest  as  guide,  in  constant 
dread  of  hostile  powers  around,  above,  and  beneath, 
against  which  he  must  be  on  his  guard.  In  order 
to  feel  safe,  he  must  be  armed  with  club  and  stone 
in  his  war  against  fellow-man  and  beast,  and  no  less 
so  with  amulet  and  fetich  against  ghosts  and  goblins 
that  hover  above  or  below.  Into  this  absolute  anarchy, 
into  this  chaotic  state  of  darkness,  the  priest  enters  as 
friend  and  benefactor,  establishing  order,  peace, 
and  law.  With  the  pure  flame  he  ignites  on  the  altar, 
with  the  bright  light  he  kindles,  with  hand  and  head 
lifted  upwards  to  the  sky  where  friendly  powers 
shine,  he  lends  expression  to  the  deeper  aspiration 
of  man.  He  adores  the  good  and  kind  deities  above, 
consigning  evil  and  darkness  to  the  unfriendly  powers 
beneath.  To  win  the  favor  of  the  benign  gods  and 
ward  off  the  malign  influence  of  the  wicked  spirits 
below,  is  the  main  object  of  the  established  rites  of 
sacrifice  and  purification.  Unlike  the  magician  or 
sorcerer  who  rules  by  fear  while  conjuring  the 
demon,  the  priest  inspires  people  with  trust  in  the  god 


112  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

he  adores,  while  keeping  aloof  from  all  that  appears 
unclean  and  belongs  to,  or  suggests,  powers  of  evil. 
Thus  he  holds  watch  over  the  rights  of  all  and  the 
safety  of  the  tribe,  to  become  the  defender  of  justice 
and  executor  of  the  law.  The  very  stability  of  the 
rites  secures  the  welfare  of  society;  for  neglect  of 
worship  would  mean  relapse  into  disorder. 

From  our  advanced  standpoint  we  hardly  realize 
the  benefits  the  priest  conferred  upon  groping  and 
struggling  humanity.  We  can  only,  while  glancing 
over  vast  epochs,  behold  wide  gulfs  between  the 
savage  piling  crude  stones  upon  his  dead,  lest  they 
may  rise  again  and  molest  him,  and  the  priestly 
architect  rearing  huge  pyramids  and  gorgeous  temples 
in  honor  of  kings  and  gods;  or  between  the  beating 
of  drums  for  the  sake  of  dispelling  the  ghosts,  and  the 
melodious  strains  of  music  and  song  accompanying 
the  sacrifice  in  Egypt,  Chaldea,  and  Palestine.  What 
a  mighty  progress  from  the  carving  of  signs  and  pic- 
tures on  rocks  and  woods,  to  the  art  of  writing  dis- 
covered by  the  priest  on  the  Nile,  and  again  from  the 
star-gazing  of  the  dweller  in  the  wilderness  fore- 
casting his  destiny,  to  the  marvellous  astronomical 
science  arrived  at  by  the  priest  on  the  Euphrates! 
All  the  beginnings  of  knowledge  and  art  we  owe  to 
the  priest,  who  brought  order  and  system  into  the 
crude  beliefs  of  primitive  man.  But  the  blessing 
of  one  age  frequently  becomes  the  curse  of  the  next. 
The  principle  of  stability  grew  into  an  impediment 
of  all  progress.  Religion  became  the  domain  of  a 
privileged  class  which  claimed  all  godliness,  holiness, 
and  wisdom  as  inalienable  rights.  A  new  order  of 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  113 

things  was  needed  which  would  no  longer  bar  the 
people  out  of  communion  with  a  world  of  goodness 
and  bliss,  but  render  religion  a  blessing,  not  a  prison, 
for  man.  This  became  the  prophet's  task. 

The  prophet  started  as  the  priest's  assistant,  as 
his  seer  and  singer;  poetry  and  prophecy  having 
the  element  of  inspiration  in  common.  When  in 
great  emergencies  out  of  the  usual  routine  the  priest 
could  not  cope  with  the  perplexing  difficulties, 
he  called  upon  the  seer  by  means  of  magic  to  divine 
the  future.  And  this  manifestation  of  soul-power 
offered  the  seer  opportunities  of  outdoing  the  priest. 
For  might  he  not,  in  a  state  of  ecstasy,  of  enthu- 
siastic vision,  be  carried  aloft  by  some  new  truth  far 
above  the  priest's  ken?  Might  he  not  herald  forth 
an  idea  grander  than  all  the  petrified  wisdom  of 
priestcraft?  Some  such  efforts  we  meet  with  even 
in  heathen  life.  As  contemporary  of  Moses  we 
hear  Balaam  mentioned  both  as  sorcerer  and  prophet 
coming  from  Northern  Mesopotamia,  where  the  god 
of  prophecy,  Nebo  (from  the  same  root  as  Nabi), 
takes  his  rank  among  the  heavenly  rulers.  In  Hellas 
and  Rome,  prophecy  led  over  to  classical  poetry  and 
philosophy.  But  nowhere  throughout  heathendom — 
for  the  monk  Buddha  points  back  to  ascetic  systems 
anterior  to  priestcraft — did  any  of  the  prophets  dare 
to  reform  religion  itself  by  breaking  through  the 
system,  fixed  as  it  was  forever  by  the  priestly 
caste.  This  was  Judaism's  grand  mission.  The 
Jewish  prophet  wrested  religion  from  the  hands  of 
the  priesthood  to  transfer  it  to  the  people.  He  brought 
God  down  from  the  inaccessible  heights  of  heaven  to 


114          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

rear  His  throne  in  the  heart  of  man.  Penetrating 
into  the  very  nature  of  the  Most  High,  he  unveiled 
the  deep  mysteries  of  life.  He  rendered  religion  a 
revelation  of  God  by  showing  Him  to  be  mirrored 
in  the  spirit  of  man. 

It  matters  not  whether,  in  accordance  with  Bib- 
lical tradition,  we  see  the  beginning  of  prophecy 
with  Moses,  the  chief  among  the  prophets,  who, 
however,  still  holds  the  magician's  staff  in  his  hand 
when  contending  with  Pharaoh's  sorcerers;  or  whether, 
with  the  old  school  of  critics,  we  behold  the  first 
actual  prophet  in  Samuel,  who  also  was  a  wise 
soothsayer  and  with  wonder-doing  Elijah;  or, 
with  the  new  school,  in  plain,  rustic  Amos.  Certain 
it  is  that  only  in  bold  opposition,  in  fierce  antag- 
onism-to  the  priesthood,  does  the  prophet  enter 
upon  his  great  life-task.  For  he  stands  for  pro- 
gress, whereas  the  priest  insists  on  fossilized 
ritualism.  He  pleads  for  humanity,  while  the  priest 
only  defends  class  interests  and  authorities  of  the 
past.  It  required  no  little  courage  of  a  man  from 
among  the  people,  with  no  authority,  no  pedigree,  no 
tradition  nor  law  to  support  him,  to  brave  the  preju- 
diced crowds  and  challenge  a  mighty  priesthood  in 
voicing  the  unheard-of  claims  of  man  in  the  name  of 
the  Eternal  God.  Renan  is  right  in  calling  the  proph- 
ets of  Judea  revolutionists.  They  actually  aimed  at, 
and  finally  succeeded  in,  upsetting  the  entire  founda- 
tion of  ancient  society.  It  was  not  so  much  the  ques- 
tion between  One  God  and  many  gods  as  whether  the 
world's  government  should  forever  remain  in  charge 
of  the  priest,  who  bribed  heaven  by  sacrifice  to  appease 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  115 


its  wrath;  or  whether  the  world's  throne  should  for- 
ever be  safely  established  upon  the  pillars  of  justice 
and  mercy.  It  was  once  for  all  time  to  be  decided 
whether  God  on  high  was  forever  to  be  flattered  and 
bribed  by  mighty  oppressors,  or  whether  He  pre- 
ferred to  dwell  among  the  lowly  and  contrite  of  heart; 
whether  religion  meant  a  system  of  bribe  and  threat, 
or  a  rule  of  righteousness  and  love.  It  was  not  a 
theological,  but  a  social,  a  national  issue  between 
prophet  and  priest.  It  was  nothing  less  than  strik- 
ing at  the  very  root  of  State  power  when  Amos, 
Hosea  and  Micah,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  hurled  forth 
their  thunderbolts  against  all  ceremonialism,  con- 
demning it  as  idolatry,  denying  to  shrines  and  altars, 
fasts  and  feasts  the  title  of  holiness,  and  declaring 
an  humble  heart  to  be  the  true  temple  of  God,  and 
works  of  justice  and  benevolence  the  only  sweet 
incense  God  takes  delight  in.  To  us  to-day  these 
truths  seem  to  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  the  people. 
But  we  forget  that  that  conscience  was  as  yet  fast 
asleep,  and  could  only  by  terrific  shocks,  by  fearful 
catastrophes,  by  successive  defeats  and  destructions 
of  states  and  temples  be  roused  from  its  stupor.  Only 
by  announcing  the  approaching  doom,  and  by  hold- 
ing out  over  the  impending  ruin  the  promise  of 
future  resurrection  of  the  people,  could  Israel  be 
rendered  the  teacher  of  a  new  principle  of  life,  the 
establisher  of  a  new  order  of  things.  Not  Chris- 
tianity, but  Judaism  centred  upon  its  matchless 
prophets,  revolutionized  the  ancient  world,  and  con- 
quered the  new.  Since  then  the  world's  history  turns 
on  the  contest  between  these  two  principles  or  powers: 


116  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

priestly  conservatism  and  prophetical  progress  of 
humanity.  For  all  the  systems  of  worship  and  be- 
lief established  ever  since,  Mosaic  and  Rabbinical 
Judaism,  Christianity  and  Islamism,  are  but  forms 
of  compromise  effected  for  the  time.  No  sooner  had 
the  prophet's  great  charge  been  fulfilled  and  his 
message  been  committed  to  writing,  than  over  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  the  law  and  the  tradition,  the 
battle  was  waged  anew  between  the  priest  of  the 
second  temple,  the  Sadducee,  and  the  defender  of 
the  people's  rights,  the  Pharisee,  represented  by  such 
men  as  Hillel  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Liberalism 
and  conservatism,  reform  and  orthodoxy  in  synagog 
or  church  are  but  heirs  and  successors  to  either 
prophet  or  priest,  the  one  placing  conscience,  recti- 
tude, and  purity  of  hand  and  heart  above  the  form, 
the  other  insisting  on  the  inherited  practice  and  creed 
as  the  mainstay  of  religion;  the  one  regarding  the 
observance  of  this  or  that  ceremony  of  no  greater 
importance  than  whether  the  national  flag  should 
have  red  or  blue  as  its  color,  the  other  constantly 
dreading  heaven's  anger  in  this  or  in  the  next  world, 
if  any  of  these  rites  be  discontinued  which  derive 
sanctity  from  their  old  age,  as,  in  fact,  they  had  their 
origin  in  the  most  primitive  state  of  mankind. 

Of  course,  as  each  army  requires  a  flag  to  rally 
its  soldiers  for  battle,  each  religion  must  have  certain 
signs  and  symbols  with  which  to  unite  its  adherents 
for  the  defense  of  its  truths.  But  if  these  have  lost 
all  their  significance  and  no  longer  express  or  suggest 
any  living  truth,  the  demand  for  better  and  more 
adequate  forms  must  be  voiced  and  complied  with. 
This  is,  and  will  ever  be.  the  battle-cry  of  reform. 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  117 


Now,  our  age  having  well-nigh  reached  the  ethical 
standpoint  of  the  prophet,  the  task  of  the  modern 
Preacher  appears  to  be  very  easy.  He  has  no  priest- 
craft to  contend  with,  no  authority  to  challenge, 
no  prejudice  to  face,  no  superstition  to  cope  with. 
His  path  seems  perfectly  smooth.  He  needs  merely 
give  utterance  to  those  sentiments  which  permeate 
the  people;  and  can  he  not,  with  some  oratorical 
power  and  rhetorical  skill,  sway  his  audience  in 
whatever  direction  he  desires?  In  former  times, 
he  had  at  least  to  wrestle  with  harsh,  unyielding 
Bible  texts  from  which  certain  dogmatic  or  practical 
truths  had  to  be  elicited,  which  required  some  mental 
gymnastics  to  perform  the  feat  creditably.  To-day 
the  Bible,  weighed  down  under  the  encumbrances  of 
ritualism  and  dogmatism,  has  lost  its  former  hold 
on  the  heart  as  to  form  the  absolutely  fixed  and  neces- 
sary starting-point.  He  is  at  liberty  to  choose  any 
subject  or  text  he  pleases.  Ethics  forming  the  marrow 
and  tissue  of  life,  he  is  never  at  a  loss  to  find  an  in- 
teresting topic.  And  the  less  worship  is  alluded  to, 
the  more  it  is  appreciated  by  both  liberals  and  con- 
servatives. If  he  only  succeeds  by  brilliancy  of  wit, 
by  versatility  of  mind  and  originality  of  style  in 
holding  his  hearers  spell-bound  whilst  speaking,  his 
popularity  is  established.  What  more  is  desired? 

Still  I  claim  the  modern  preacher's  task  is  one  of 
the  greatest,  holiest,  and  most  trying  ones.  His 
office  is  a  trust,  not  from  the  people  to  whom,  but 
from  God  for  whom  he  speaks,  and  unless  his  power 
and  authority  are  felt  and  recognized  as  coming, 
not  from  man,  but  from  God  on  high,  unless  he  voices 


118  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


that  which  is  holiest,  dearest,  and  truest  to  all,  he 
is  no  lawful  heir  to  priest  and  prophet.  For  into  his 
hands  is  committed  the  future  of  humanity.  His 
hands  are  to  mould  the  destinies  of  homes  and  com- 
munities. He  is  the  appointed  guardian  of  souls. 
Greater  demands  and  claims  are  made  on  him  than 
at  any  other  previous  time.  Greater  trials  and 
temptations  beset  his  heart  and  mind  than  ever 
known  in  former  days.  Doubts  and  struggles  from 
within,  social  pressure  from  without  render  his  path 
difficult  and  thorny.  Two  worlds  are  arrayed  for 
battle  against  each  other,  and  unless  he  knows  how 
to  offer  reassuring  words  of  victory,  comfort,  and  peace 
amidst  the  fierce  contest,  he  is  not  the  trusty  champion 
needed  in  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity. 

The  issue  to-day  is  no  longer  between  Reform  and 
Orthodoxy,  but  between  a  world  with  God  and  a 
world  without  God.  Behold  the  old  foundation  of 
morality  shaken,  time-honored  faith  sapped,  the  age 
moving,  shifting,  and  changing  in  feverish  inquietude, 
and  life  levelled  down  by  pursuits  and  aims  which 
rouse  passion  and  selfishness  to  their  utmost  fury. 
The  seeds  of  discontent  are  cast  among  the  masses 
to  threaten  society  with  nihilism  and  anarchy,  and 
in  the  general  race  for  happiness  only  dissonances  are 
heard  amidst  the  colliding  interests  of  classes  and 
vocations  on  the  mart  of  business,  in  the  court  of 
justice  and  the  council  of  the  nations.  The  light 
of  culture  which  streams  in  through  every  window 
of  the  soul,  through  press  and  from  platform,  school 
and  library,  on  the  high  and  by-ways  of  life,  to  feed 
the  intellect  and  expand  it  to  its  highest  capacity, 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  119 


makes  the  blood  course  to  the  brain,  leaving  the 
heart  empty  and  cold.  The  sombre  hue  of  pessimism 
and  despair  darkens  the  bright  prospects  of  a  glorious 
age,  so  rich  in  resources,  and  so  proud  of  its  un- 
dreamt-of conquests  in  every  field  of  labor.  The  old 
order  of  things  which  comforted  the  less  fortunate 
with  the  promise  of  great  treasures  of  bliss  in  the 
next  world,  no  longer  satisfies  the  people.  A  new 
earth  and  a  new  heaven  are  being  ushered  in,  a 
human  life  which  is  to  carry  heaven  within  its  own 
bosom  and  to  reveal  God  in  its  own  life.  And  who 
should  stand  as  sponsor,  as  mediator  between  a  world 
dying  and  a  world  nascent  and  promising,  but  the 
modern  preacher?  Amidst  the  surging  flood  of  new 
ideas,  amidst  the  restless  progress  of  humanity,  he 
must  point  to  the  immovable  Rock  of  Ages  beneath 
whom  all  ages  are  to  take  shelter  against  any  storm 
that  rages.  When  all  appears  unstable  and  unsafe, 
both  his  words  and  actions  must  tell  that  heaven 
means  principle.  When  in  our  mercenary  age  things 
and  persons  are  measured  by  outward  success,  he 
must,  like  the  monument  erected  in  honor  of  George 
Washington,  tower  up,  "as  the  straight  line  of  truth," 
as  the  pillar  of  rectitude,  unyielding,  unbending, 
holding  forth  the  all-surpassing  lesson  of  integrity 
of  character.  When  all  are  out  in  search  of  truth, 
never  satisfied,  never  at  rest,  he  must  point  inward  to 
the  core  of  things,  to  truthfulness,  and  upwards  to 
the  heart  of  hearts,  the  Fountain-head  of  all  truth. 
Like  the  prophet  of  old,  it  is  the  preacher's  glorious 
task  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  feeble  and  the  lowly,  and 
side  with  the  humble  and  needy.  Yes,  his  place  is  in 


120  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

the  break  between  the  militant  classes,  between  the 
warring  views  and  interests,  to  help  in  building  up  a 
new  system  of  life,  in  the  establishing  of  a  new  order 
of  justice,  love  and  peace. 

Yet  how  can  he  do  so,  without  the  fiery  eloquence 
of  a  holy  conviction,  without  the  live-coal  of  heavenly 
inspiration  upon  his  tongue?  How  can  he  expect, 
like  the  prophet  of  yore,  to  rouse  a  storm  within 
his  hearers'  consciences  to  humble  the  pride  of  the 
haughty,  to  curb  passion  and  make  cruelty  in  high 
or  low  places  tremble  and  sink  into  dust,  without  the 
sweeping  force  of  irresistible  earnestness?  How  can 
he  hope  to  kindle  in  the  bosom  of  his  audience  a  fire 
which  burns  up  every  idol  of  popular  favor  and  con- 
sumes vice  and  selfishness  to  make  all  hunger  and 
thirst  for  righteousness  and  love,  if  truth  has  not 
set  every  fibre  of  his  being  ablaze?  Pyrotechnics 
are  of  no  avail.  At  the  end  people  will  learn  to 
discriminate  between  chaff  and  wheat.  In  spite 
of  his  heavy  tongue,  Moses  became  the  greatest  of 
prophets.  The  pulpit  must  stand  for  consistency. 
It  must  not  be  degraded  into  a  platform,  swayed  by 
every  change  of  public  opinion  to  render  the  speaker 
a  weather-cock  indicating  the  fluctuations  of  the 
atmosphere,  or  a  reed  which  bends  to  every  wind. 
It  ought  not  be  transformed  into  a  stage  where  the 
truth  is  not  preached,  but  acted  with  the  comedian's 
skill,  now  to  make  the  people  laugh,  and  then  with 
simulated  tragic  to  move  them  into  tears.  What  our 
time  is  most  in  need  of  is  faith  in  God  and  in  humanity, 
a  faith  which  still  moves  mountains  and  performs 
wonders  of  resurrection.  Religion  must  be  hope 


PRIEST,  PROPHET  AND  PREACHER  121 


and  cheering  comfort  and  encouraging  trust  in  life's 
great  Ordainer.  And  the  preacher  can  neither  afford 
to  ignore  the  past,  nor  be  blind  to  the  great  issues  of 
the  present  time;  but  as  the  flame  on  the  altar  of  the 
second  temple  was  ignited  by  the  spark  hidden  in 
the  ashes  of  the  first,  so  must  reverential  piety  for 
the  past  kindle  the  hope  for  a  brighter  future.  Neither 
learning  nor  art,  but  wealth  of  sentiment  and  firm- 
ness of  principle  make  the  leader.  Russian  folk-lore 
tells  of  heroes  who,  after  having  achieved  life-long 
wonders  of  prowess,  could  not  die  before  imbuing 
their  successors  with  their  last  breath  to  equip  them 
with  strength  to  emulate  their  greatness  and  fill  the 
land  with  fame.  In  order  to  build  up  humanity  in 
all  its  grandeur  and  divine  glory,  we  must,  both  preach- 
er and  hearer,  imbibe  the  very  breath  of  all  the 
prophets  and  great  geniuses  of  all  ages  and  lands, 
to  feel  their  glow  of  enthusiasm  and  love  for  all  that 
is  and  ever  will  be  dear  and  holy  to  mankind.  May 
God  aid  us  in  this  endeavor!  Amen. 


12. 


THE  NEW  TEMPLE  A  TESTIMONY  TO  OUR 
FAITH  IN  ISRAEL'S  GOD,  IN 
HUMANITY'S  FUTURE.* 

WITH  fervent  thanksgiving  to  the  Most  High, 
we  have  entered  this  house  filled  with  glory, 
thrilled  with  emotions  which  no  words  can  express, 
and  like  Jacob  of  old  at  Beth  El,  we  see  a  ladder 
reaching  up  to  heaven  with  angels  ascending  and 
descending,  and  the  words  are  echoed  in  our  ear: 
"How  awe-inspiring  is  this  place!  Truly  this  is  a 
house  of  God;  and  this  is  a  gate  of  heaven." 

Still  what  is  all  architectual  beauty  and  grandeur, 
all  harmony  of  design  and  color,  all  magnificence  of 
form,  unless  it  embodies  a  living  truth;  unless  it 
enshrines  an  idea  more  enduring  than  the  granite 
rock  out  of  which  a  structure  is  hewn? 

"Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  unto  Thy 
name  belongeth  the  glory!"  The  fire  from  heaven 
must  descend  and  fill  this  house  with  the  divine 
glory.  Such  is  the  purpose,  such  is  the  meaning,  of 
this  dedication. 

I  take  my  text  from  Haggai,  the  prophet  (ii.7-9) : 
"I  will  fill  this  house  with  glory,  saith  the  Lord 
of  Hosts,  and  greater  will  be  the  latter  glory  of  the 

*Dedication  of  the  new  Temple  Beth   El,   New    York,    Sept. 
18,  1891. 


124  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

house  than  the  former,  and  I  will  give  peace  in  this 
place." 

The  erection  of  a  new  shrine  for  our  ancient 
faith  in  the  heart  of  our  great  American  metropolis, 
is  in  itself  an  occasion  of  joy  and  satisfaction  to  a 
far  larger  circle  than  that  circumscribed  by  Beth-El's 
congregation.  I  claim  that  every  new  temple  reared 
to  the  glorification  of  God  is  an  advancement  of  the 
cause  of  humanity.  Every  dome  gives  the  soul  an 
upward  bent;  every  sacred  spire  stands  for  higher 
aspirations.  We  know,  all  who  read  the  Sacred  Book 
know,  that  God,  who  is  all  spirit,  whose  glory  tran- 
scends the  heavens,  and  around  whose  throne  suns  and 
stars  swing  through  aeons  in  majestic  pageant,  re- 
quires no  house  built  by  human  hands;  that  He 
cares  not  for  the  glitter  of  gold,  for  decorated  walls, 
but  for  hearts  humble  and  upright.  But  man  needs 
consecrated  spots  that  fill  him  with  wonder,  with 
admiration  and  awe. 

Man  wants  the  impress  of  beauty  in  order  to  soar 
up  to  the  sublimity  of  the  divine.  Glance  over  man- 
kind's path  through  the  ages,  and  you  will  find  the 
progress  of  civilization  marked  by  the  ruins  of 
temples,  which  in  their  very  decay  bespeak  a  glory 
which  never  fades.  The  frames  and  forms  of  worship 
perish;  worship  itself,  the  soul  of  religion,  never! 
Each  flaming  altar,  each  lighted  lamp,  each  lofty 
dome  symbolizes  man's  longing  for  the  harmonies  of 
a  higher  world.  From  the  sanctuaries  of  God,  man 
ever  derived  his  greatness  and  beauty,  his  valor  and 
his  virtue.  Excelsior!  is  the  cry  of  heaven-aspiring 
faith.  Were  it  true  that  our  enlightened  age  needed 


THE  TEMPLE,  TESTIMONY  TO  ISRAEL'S  FAITH    125 

temples  no  longer,  then  we  had  better  give  up  the 
hope  of  advancing  any  further.  For  science,  with 
its  complicated  problems,  lands  man  in  a  sea  of  de- 
spair, and  ethics  divested  of  God,  duty  void  of  the 
Great  Commander  fails  to  shield  against  the  dagger 
of  the  suicide.  How  can  a  man  stand  on  a  ladder 
and  yet  hold  it  in  the  air?  We  need  a  stronger  arm 
than  ours  to  sustain  us,  to  shelter  us  from  life's 
tempests  and  storms.  We  need  the  uplifting  power 
of  religion  to-day  more  than  ever  before.  Each  new 
temple  symbolizes  this  perpetual  need,  the  perpetuity 
of  the  ideal  world. 

How  cheap  is  the  wisdom  of  those  who  say: 
"Temples  of  charity  we  want,"  not  of  religion; 
homes  for  the  helpless,  not  for  the  Great  Helper 
above!  The  very  men  who  at  great  sacrifice  reared 
the  magnificent  shrines  of  God  are  the  ones  who  built 
and  who  maintain  our  glorious  institutions  of  philan- 
thropy. It  is  the  joy  of  sacrifice  that  enriches  the 
heart  and  turns  each  temple  into  a  channel  of  blessed- 
ness. 

But  a  far  mightier  lesson  must  this  beauteous 
house  preach,  a  far  more  wondrous  truth  must  this 
mighty  organ  peal  forth.  It  is  to  the  glorification 
of  Israel's  Only  One,  to  the  perpetuation  and  propa- 
gation of  Judaism,  that  this  Temple  was  built.  If 
every  house  of  God  is  a  tower  of  strength  to  feeble 
mortals,  the  Jewish  Synagog  stands  forth  as  an  ensign 
of  the  nations,  as  a  banner  of  victory,  an  arch  of 
triumph,  proclaiming  the  irresistible  power  of  truth 
over  error,  of  justice  over  wrongdoing,  of  liberty  over 
oppression,  of  light  over  darkness.  Four  thousand 


126  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

years  the  light  of  Abrahamitic  faith  has  shone  as  a 
perpetual  lamp  to  illumine  man's  path,  and  no  storm 
was  fierce  enough  to  quench  it,  no  sun  of  human 
culture  bright  enough  to  eclipse  it.  And  however 
dreary  our  journey,  however  thorny  our  path,  how- 
ever furious  the  lashes  we  have  received  at  the  hands 
of  our  persecutors,  our  feet  have  not  grown  weary, 
our  eyes  have  not  become  dim,  our  strength  has  not 
abated.  Here  we  stand,  the  living  witnesses  of  the 
remotest  past,  the  sons  of  the  Chaldean  shepherds, 
on  this  virgin  soil  of  America,  under  the  genial  sun 
of  liberty  to  unfurl  the  flag  unstained  by  any  dis- 
loyalty, and  to  proclaim  a  truth  that  challenges  all 
creeds  in  loftiness  of  thought,  in  purity  of  senti- 
ment, in  broadness  of  mind  and  in  comprehensive- 
ness. Wipe  out  every  miracle  from  the  pages  of  his- 
tory, sacred  or  profane;  efface  every  trace  of  divine 
interference  by  Darwinian  methods,  the  Jew  is  still 
a  miracle,  every  synagog  a  finger-post  of  Divine 
Providence.  Though  despised  by  the  builders,  the 
Jew  has  become  the  corner-stone  of  civilization,  the 
main  pillar  in  the  temple  of  humanity.  Sneer  not 
at  his  bent-down  stature,  mock  not  at  his  sharply- 
cut  features;  he  has  carried  your  load  of  shame,  ye 
nations!  He  has  been  singled  out  to  battle  for  the 
truth  you  crave  after,  to  champion  the  right  and  the 
justice  upon  which  your  well  being  is  founded.  He 
has  been,  and,  alas  still  is,  the  Man  of  Sorrow  whom 
you  crucified,  who  bled  and  suffered  for  you.  Yet  enter 
his  gates  of  worship,  listen  to  his  teaching  and  pray- 
ers. The  God  he  adores  is  the  Father  of  all,  whose 
true  son  is  man,  endowed  with  His  light  of  reason, 


THE  TEMPLE,  TESTIMONY  TO  ISRAEL'S  FAITH    127 


drawing  life  from  His  empyrean  of  love.  No  par- 
tiality of  creed,  no  monopoly  of  heaven,  no  hell  for 
heretics,  no  damnation  for  sinners!  All  life  but  one 
revelation  of  God  all  humanity  but  one  Kingdom 
of  Righteousness,  and  whoseoever  is  clean  of  hands 
and  pure  of  heart  is  on  the  road  to  the  sun-lit  hill 
of  blessedness,  forever! 

Ought  we  not  be  thankful  to  the  benign  Ruler 
of  history  that,  under  the  blessed  sway  of  the  free 
institutions  of  our  country,  we  are  permitted  to  stand 
here  on  this  beautiful  spot,  amidst  surroundings  which 
suggest  broadness  and  freshness,  vigor  and  verdure, 
and  herald  forth  these  doctrines,  which  cannot  but 
enlist  the  attention  and  command  the  recognition 
of  the  wide  world?  Too  long  have  we  been  forced  to 
live  in  obscurity  and  hide  our  light  before  men. 
Thank  heaven,  the  American  Jew  is  not  shut  up  in 
narrow  streets,  nor  impeded  in  his  industrial  progress, 
nor  hampered  in  his  social  success.  All  the  more 
must  he  hail  the  opportunity  of  casting  off  the  re- 
proach of  materialism  and  infidelism,  and  offering 
up  the  testimony  before  the  wide  world  that,  as  little 
as  his  God,  the  Rock  of  Ages,  has  changed,  so  little 
has  he  swerved  in  his  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  truth, 
in  his  allegiance  to  God  and  to  humanity!  Our 
Temple  is  the  seal  of  our  faith  in  the  perpetuity  of 
Judaism. 

But  greater  still  is  thy  task,  Temple  Beth-El, 
brighter  thy  future  as  pioneer  of  progress,  as  banner- 
bearer  of  Reform!  On  Moriah's  hill  the  seer  once  stood, 
pointing  to  the  house  on  the  top  of  the  mountain 
over  whose  gates  the  words  are  inscribed  in  letters 


128  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

of  fire:  "Mine  house  shall  be  a  house  of  prayer  for 
all  nations."  To  scale  these  heights  and  swing  wide 
open  the  doors  of  humanity's  temple  is  modern  Israel's 
mission.  People  marvel  at  the  Jew,  because  he 
numbers  so  many  centuries;  the  greater  marvel  is 
that  his  religion  never  grows  old,  but  forms  a  well  of 
perennial  life,  a  fount  of  youth  for  heart  and  spirit. 
It  ever  advanced  with  the  age;  it  was  rejuvenated 
by  the  morning  dew  of  each  new  era  of  liberty. 
Germany  cradled  the  new  Moses  that  broke  the 
shackles  of  mediaeval  Egypt  from  off  the  neck  of  the 
Jew.  Then  Reform,  the  twin  sister  of  Light,  came  and 
pruned  and  trimmed  the  ancient  tree  to  make  it 
bloom  again,  as  the  spring  arrived,  and  hold  forth  its 
shade  to  cover  the  nations.  And  behold,  the  venerable 
mother  that,  centuries  ago,  gave  birth  to  the  world's 
great  religions,  took  off  the  veil  of  widowhood,  and 
felt  imbued  with  new  strength  and  hope,  to  vie 
with  her  proud  daughter,  looking  for  the  time  when 
her  old  covenant  will  rebuild  the  house  spacious 
enough  to  embrace  all  the  children  of  God — religion 
humanized  and  humanity  religionized.  This  became 
the  aim  of  modern  Judaism.  And  nowhere  so  as  on 
our  free  American  soil.  "Lay  aside  the  wanderer's 
staff.  Fling  away  the  Oriental  garb!  Render  the 
New  World  thy  Jerusalem!  Here  is  the  Holy  Land, 
where  God  works  justice  and  salvation!"  This  was 
the  battle-cry  of  Beth-El's  founder,  the  illustrious 
Reform  champion,  Dr.  Einhorn.  This  prophetic 
summons  his  pulpit  and  his  Sabbath  school  re- 
echoed. To  these  views  and  principles  Beth-El's 
new  house  is  dedicated.  Yet  not  to  lead  a  mere 


THE  TEMPLE,  TESTIMONY  TO  ISRAEL'S  FAITH    129 

wing  of  Israel's  army,  and  separate  from  our  breth- 
ren at  large,  but,  with  united  forces,  to  ascend  the 
hill  of  Zion  and  give  light  to  the  nations,  is  our  aim 
and  purpose.  Piety  coupled  with  progress,  loyalty 
to  the  past  entwined  with  liberal-mindedness,  is 
our  watchword. 

Nor  shall  it  be  the  mere  preaching,  but  the  prac- 
tice of  the  great  principle  of  broad-minded  humanity 
that  this  Temple  will  stand  for.  Not  merely  prayer 
and  praise,  but  promotion  of  peace  and  establish- 
ment of  justice;  not  creed,  but  deed,  is  Judaism's 
object.  Not  merely  pulpit,  but  pew;  not  words,  but 
actions,  not  the  beliefs,  but  the  lives  of  the  members, 
manifest  the  Temple's  sanctity  and  glory.  May 
Beth  El's  new  mount  tower  high  in  righteousness! 
May  its  three  pillars,  Enlightenment,  Faith  and 
Practical  Love,  grow  in  firmness,  in  solidity  and  in 
far-reaching  power.  When,  in  ancient  times,  a  new 
house  was  erected,  a  live  coal  from  off  the  old  hearth- 
stone was  taken,  to  ignite  therewith  the  fire  upon  the 
new.  So  was  the  sacred  flame  of  the  second  Temple 
kindled  with  the  sparks,  kept  deep  down  in  the  earth, 
from  the  first.  We,  too,  bring  along  all  the  sweet 
and  sacred  memories  of  our  old  temple,  all  the  dear 
reminiscences  of  the  past  and  our  departed  ones, 
to  work  as  an  inspiration  and  an  incentive  to  greater 
efforts  in  the  new,  in  order  that  greater  shall  be  the 
latter  glory  of  the  house  than  the  former,  and  that 
our  benign  God  render  this  house  a  promoter  of 
peace,  a  link  of  friendship  among  the  various  syn- 
agogs  and  congregations,  a  source  of  blessing  to  all 
classes,  creeds  and  races,  that  there  may  be  written 


130  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


upon  our  Temple:  "Holy  to  God  on  high!  Blessing 
and  Peace  to  all  families  of  men  on  earth!" 

And  so  I  consecrate  thee,  O  beauteous  place, 
unto  the  worship  of  the  Eternal,  the  living  God  of 
Israel,  the  Holy  One  whom  all  men  shall  yet  own 
and  adore  as  Father  and  King!  Be  thou  a  home  of 
light  and  truth,  a  treasure-house  of  comfort  and 
inspiration  to  every  Israelite,  even  to  the  stranger 
that  visits  thy  gates!  May  the  cheerless  be  here 
gladdened,  the  despondent  endowed  with  new  cour- 
age and  hope,  and  the  bereft  ones  feel  that  they  have 
still  a  Father  and  a  Friend  on  high!  May  the  prosper- 
ous learn  here  the  lesson  of  gratitude,  the  proud 
become  meek,  and  the  erring  find  the  road  to  truth 
and  happiness. 

I  consecrate  thee,  holy  ark  with  the  scrolls  of  the 
Law,  Israel's  banner.  Be  thou  a  blessed  stream  of 
holiness!  May  God's  holy  spirit  dwell  within  thee, 
and  when  those  gates  are  lifted,  may  we  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Lord:  "Not  by  power,  nor  by  might,  but  by 
My  spirit!" 

I  consecrate  thee,  perpetual  lamp,  emblem  of 
life  eternal,  symbol  of  Israel's  never  fading  truth!  and 
thee,  the  Reader's  Desk,  table  of  God.  Be  a  fount 
of  living  water  for  thirsty  souls!  Awaken  thou  the 
noblest  emotions,  the  sweetest  sentiments  in  all! 
Thou  majestic  organ,  peal  forth  the  glory  of  the  Most 
High!  Sway  the  hearts  for  good,  soothe  all  sufferings, 
kindle  with  thy  swelling  anthems  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  people  for  all  that  is  holy! 

I  consecrate  thee,  pulpit,  holy  altar  of  God,  to 
the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness.  May  heaven's 


THE  TEMPLE,  TESTIMONY  TO  ISRAEL'S  FAITH    131 

fire  ever  come  down  to  endow  the  speaker's  tongue 
with  courage,  with  the  sincerity  of  conviction,  with 
the  earnestness  of  a  man  of  God!  May  all  idolatry 
and  falsehood  be  banished,  the  right  defended, 
loyalty  and  patriotism,  purity  and  integrity  be  taught, 
every  soul  be  uplifted,  every  heart  quickened  and 
refreshed,  everything  good  promoted! 

I  consecrate  thee,  Sabbath  School,  to  the  glorifi- 
cation of  God,  to  the  promotion  of  Judaism,  to  the 
dissemination  of  truth  and  of  love,  to  the  education 
and  elevation  of  character,  to  the  development  of 
noble  manhood  and  womanhood! 

I  consecrate  the  whole  house,  the  entire  congre- 
gation to  the  service  of  God,  to  the  highest  welfare 
of  humanity.  May  it  be  a  center  and  focus  of  light, 
of  righteousness  and  love!  Amen. 


13. 


THE  THREEFOLD  PURPOSE  OF  THE 
SYNAGOG.* 

THIS  is  a  great  day  of  rejoicing  for  Sinai  Congre- 
gation and  for  the  entire  community  of  Chicago, 
and  we  all  from  near  and  far  rejoice  with  you  and  con- 
gratulate you,  Rabbi  and  members  of  Sinai  Temple, 
upon  your  glorious  achievement.  The  majestic 
monument  the  like  of  which  in  beauty  and  awe- 
inspiring  grandeur  is  scarcely  to  be  found  throughout 
the  land,  and  which  you  have  reared  here  for  the  glory 
of  Israel's  God  and  for  the  service  of  humanity, 
is  a  joy  to  the  beholder,  an  ornament  or  pride  to  the 
city  and  a  testimony  to  the  large-heartedness  of  the 
Congregation,  and  to  the  power  and  efficacy  of  Sinai's 
rabbi.  Indeed,  the  tongue  falters,  were  I  to  express 
the  feelings  that  move  and  thrill  me  at  this  moment. 
All  I  can  say  is  that  it  is  with  unspeakable  joy  that 
I  participate  in  these  festivities,  and  I  deeply  appre- 
ciate the  honor  of  being  called  upon  to  voice  the 
gladsome  thanksgivings  of  this  large  assembly  to 
the  Most  High,  who  has  permitted  us  to  see  this  day 
of  great  doings  and  still  greater  expectations  for  the 
future,  and  to  consecrate  this  majestic  edifice  to  its 
high  and  holy  purposes. 

*  Address  delivered  at  the  Dedication  of  the  new  Sinai  Temple, 
Chicago,  March  1,  1912. 


134  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Thirty-six  years  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to 
dedicate  the  former  temple,  which  during  the  early 
years  of  my  ministry  with  you  had  risen  in  magnifi- 
cence out  of  the  ruins  of  the  great  fire.  Oh  what  a 
noble  record  of  heroic  struggles  and  signal  triumphs, 
of  courageous  efforts  and  brilliant  successes  does 
that  temple  as  well  as  its  predecessors  now  recall! 
Only  a  few  of  the  noble  toilers,  the  high-minded 
pioneers  who  stood  sponsors  at  Sinai's  cradle — let 
me  but  mention  the  venerable  father  and  uncle  of 
your  honored  President,  God  bless  them! — have 
under  God's  special  favor  been  spared  to  embody 
these  sweet  memories  for  us,  and  to  witness  the 
realization  of  Sinai's  boldest  dream,  that  of  having 
the  religious,  the  educational  and  social  work  centered 
and  focused  in  one  gigantic  structure.  Indeed, 
progress  is  inscribed  on  Sinai's  banner.  The  seer's 
inspiring  words:  "Enlarge  the  place  of  thy  tent, 
stretch  forth  the  curtains  of  thy  habitation  without 
sparing;  spread  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  that  thy 
seed  shall  possess  the  nations!"  were  with  thrilling 
eloquence  echoed  forth  from  your  pulpit,  and  noble 
was  the  response  that  has  come  from  the  pew.  Here, 
then,  is  the  text  for  my  dedicatory  address:  "Greater 
shall  be  the  glory  of  the  new  house  than  that  of  the 
former,  and  in  this  place  will  I  give  peace,  says  the 
Lord  of  Hosts."  (Haggai  II.,  9.) 

Your  Temple  about  to  be  consecrated  to  Israel's 
imperishable  truths  and  to  mankind's  highest 
ideals  of  righteousness  and  love  stands  on  historic 
Jewish  ground  in  a  deeper  sense  that  many  realize. 
In  three-fold  glory,  with  a  three-fold  object  in  view, 


THREEFOLD  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SYNAGOG         135 


the  Synagog  has  ever  since  its  foundation  stood  forth 
as  mother  of  Church  and  Mosque,  as  a  "House  of 
Worship" — Beth  Tejillah — a  "House  of  Religious 
Instruction  and  Education" — Beth  Ha  Midrash — 
and  a  "House  of  Communal  Gathering  for  Social 
Service" — Beth  ha  Kheseth — following  the  maxim 
of  the  Men  of  the  Great  Assembly:  "On  the  Torah, 
on  Worship  and  on  Beneficence  Rests  the  Moral 
Welfare  of  the  World.'  The  first,  we  are  told,  is 
typified  by  Abraham's  Mount  of  Vision;  the  second 
by  Isaac's  field;  the  third  by  Jacob's  house.  For  all 
these  your  Temple  offers  a  large  scope,  an  ever 
widening  sphere  of  activity. 

As  a  hill  of  God  this  sanctuary  of  worship  towers 
above  all  your  homes,  inviting  all  to  ascend  to  the 
serene  realm  of  the  ideal.  Sinai  zeh  sullam,  "Sinai 
spells  scaling  the  heavenly  heights  of  truth  and 
righteousness,"  say  the  rabbis.  True,  each  shrine 
or  altar,  church  steeple  or  dome  is  symbol  or  token 
of  man's  upward  striving  and  yearning.  But,  as 
Israel's  God  was  never  enshrined  within  the  walls 
of  its  temple,  nor  encompassed  by  the  heavens  and 
heaven  of  heavens,  so  he  who  enters  this  house  of 
God  finds  Him  only  in  the  craving  for  truth  and  jus- 
tice, in  the  yearning  for  purity  and  goodness  that 
wells  up  in  the  heart  within  and  mirrors  the  Infinite 
and  Holy  One  above.  Herein  lies  the  secret  of  Israel's 
faith.  It  is  unending  aspiration  and  elevation  of 
soul  and  mind,  constant  progress  with  the  advancing 
ages  of  history.  We  have  no  Old  Testament.  The 
fount  of  Divine  Revelation  never  slackened  for  the 
genius  of  the  Jew.  Judaism's  well-spring  of  truth 


136  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

never  ran  dry.  From  Abraham,  who  rose  to  Moriah's 
height  to  behold  the  Only  One  God  as  the  Father  of 
man,  to  the  seers  and  sages  of  our  time  who  read  the 
ancient  Scriptures  in  the  light  of  our  own  knowledge, 
there  is  but  one  continuous  stream  of  light,  one 
dynamic  process  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  growth 
and  development  to  render  Judaism  a  living,  ever- 
progressive,  ever-expanding  truth,  an  ever-rejuvenat- 
ing, liberalizing  and  humanizing  force. 

This  great  fact  of  history  was  obscured  and  lost 
sight  of  in  the  Ghetto  Synagog  with  its  petrified 
Oriental  forms,  its  mechanical  system  of  worship  and 
its  obsolete  ceremonialism  and  antiquated  litanies. 
Thanks,  everlasting  thanks  to  our  heroic  regenerators 
of  Judaism,  the  prophets  of  our  own  time,  our  Reform 
Temple  opened  the  avenues  of  the  soul  anew  to  the 
life-quickening  and  world-conquering  verities  of 
Israelite's  heritage,  and  with  its  powerful  appeal 
to  mind  and  heart  and  its  inspiring  and  uplifting 
forms,  invested  worship  with  new  life  and  meaning, 
filling  the  courts  of  God  again  with  the  beauty  of 
holiness. 

And  among  all  the  Reform  temples  in  the  land, 
Sinai's  Temple  at  the  very  outset  took  its  stand  in 
the  foremost  ranks,  espousing,  without  hesitancy  and 
without  compromise,  the  principle  of  Liberalism,  of 
Modernism  and  broad  Humanitarianism  while  loyal 
to  Judaism's  historic  task.  "For  My  house  shall  be 
a  house  of  prayer  for  all  the  nations"  was  written 
over  its  gates.  And  with  the  courage  of  consistency 
you  established  divine  service  on  the  day  of  common 
rest  in  order  to  have  your  house  of  worship  filled 


THREEFOLD  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SYNAGOG         137 


from  week  to  week  with  devout  men  and  women, 
young  and  old,  from  each  household,  eager  to  enroll 
in  the  army  of  battlers  for  Israel's  law  of  truth 
and  righteousness,  and  be  lifted  up  by  the  peerless 
powers  of  your  leader  to  the  lofty  realms  of  the  ideal. 
Who  dares  question  your  Judaism,  or  blame  you  for 
thus  satisfying  a  religious  need  not  otherwise  pro- 
vided for?  Least  of  all,  I,  who  did  not  merely  in- 
troduce the  Sunday  service  alongside  of  the  tradi- 
tional Sabbath  service,  but  who,  in  the  years  of  plas- 
tic, formative  youth  that  I  spent  with  you,  imbibed 
here  the  enthusiasm  and  zeal  that  spurred  me  on  to 
soar  to  the  heights  of  keener  vision  and  to  strive 
with  my  humble  powers  to  become  an  interpreter 
of  our  great  past  in  the  spirit  of  our  age  of  evolution, 
endeavoring  to  harmonize  modern  thought  with  the 
ancient  faith. 

All  the  more  would  I  on  this  grand  occasion  urge 
you  not  to  stand  aloof,  but  to  work  hand  in  hand 
with  all  the  progressive  forces,  all  the  liberal  elements 
of  Judaism  the  world  over.  More  than  ever  are  we 
to-day  in  need  of  concerted  action  in  view  of  the  re- 
actionary tide  that  has  set  in.  We  must  present  a 
united  front  against  the  un-American  and  non- 
religious  Kehillah  movement,  which  threatens  to 
erect  new  Ghetto  walls  in  this  free  country  and  to 
deflect  the  Jew  from  his  historic  world-task  and 
world- wide  truth. 

Do  you  glory  in  your  radicalism?  Be  it  so.  The 
most  radical  Jew,  if  he  is  but  a  Jew  by  conviction  and 
faith,  is  a  thousand  times  more  of  a  Jew  than  the 
nationalist  who  belittles  the  faith  our  fathers  suffered 


138  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

and  died  for,  and  who  regards  the  Hebrew  language 
as  of  greater  importance  than  the  Ten  Words  of  Sinai 
which  blazed  forth  in  seventy  tongues  of  fire,  to  il- 
lumine all  the  nations  of  the  world. 

What  the  Jew  needs  most  of  all  amidst  this  stren- 
uous intellectual  and  industrial  life,  is  a  God  under 
whose  everlasting  arms  he  may  seek  shelter  from 
storm  and  stress,  a  house  of  prayer  to  find  the  God 
within.  Amidst  the  three  R's  that  dominate  life  and 
learning  to-day,  we  need  as  the  fourth  and  most  es- 
sential R,  Reverence — "the  holy  awe" — which,  as 
Goethe  says,  "is  the  best  in  man."  We  need  reli- 
gion, as  the  heavenly  source  of  Righteousness,  the 
tribunal  of  Responsibility.  So  may  the  glory  of  your 
Temple  be  manifested  in  greater  power  of  spirituality, 
so  that  new  faith  and  courage,  new  strength  and  hope, 
new  comfort  and  light  come  to  each  and  all  who 
enter  here,  member  or  stranger,  and  God  give  peace 
to  every  striving  and  struggling  soul. 

And  then  there  is  the  Beth  ha  Midrash,  "the  Sanc- 
tuary of  Religious  Instruction  and  Education," 
that  opens  its  portals  here  to  larger  assemblies  of 
men  and  women  aspiring  to  truth  than  heretofore. 
The  Synagog  was  for  the  Jew  at  all  times  "the 
Shul,"  the  house  of  learning,  the  school  that  endowed 
his  mind  with  knowledge,  that  trained  him  for  life's 
highest  duties  and  equipped  him  with  soldier-like 
courage  for  the  defense  of  the  right  and  the  true, 
with  priestly  sanctity  consecrating  him  to  his  mis- 
sion. It  taught  him  the  grand  lessons  of  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  to  which 
he  adhered  despite  an  unbrotherly  world  about  him, 


THREEFOLD  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SYN AGOG         139 


It  inculcated  in  him  the  principle  of  justice,  however 
unjustly  the  life  without  dealt  with  him.  It  echoed 
forth  the  words  of  love  and  peace  amid  environments 
of  hatred  and  bloodshed.  Yes,  it  was  a  field  in  which 
the  seeds  of  truth  were  sown  in  the  hearts  of  young 
and  old  to  fill  all  minds  with  light  and  enrich  all  hearts 
with  the  treasures  of  the  spirit.  The  golden  candle- 
stick, the  Menorah,  is  Judaism's  emblem,  and  its 
ultimate  aim  and  hope  is  the  time  when  "the  whole 
earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  God  as 
the  waters  covers  the  sea." 

And  in  obedience  to  this  call  the  Reform  pulpit 
strove  to  render  the  Torah  anew  the  educator  of  the 
people  and  the  Synagog  a  schoolhouse  of  humanity. 
It  endeavored  again  to  democratize  Israel's  religion 
and  to  bring  Judaism's  treasures  home  to  all,  to 
woman  as  well  as  to  man,  to  child  as  well  as  to  adult, 
to  non-Jew  as  well  as  to  Jew.  And  whoever  has  come 
within  reach  of  Sinai's  Temple  felt  that  higher  de- 
mands were  made  upon  Sinai's  pulpit  to  make  it  a 
far-reaching  power  for  religious  enlightenment  and 
liberalism,  an  educating  influence  for  a  clearer  com- 
prehension of  the  problems  and  the  great  issues  of 
life;  they  beheld  here  the  light  of  the  new  day,  and 
not  a  few  that  were  lost  in  the  labyrinth  of  doubt, 
under  the  guidance  of  your  great  preacher,  again 
found  the  road  to  the  city  of  God.  Sinai's  much- 
assailed  liberalism  made  the  congregation  not  merely 
liberal-minded,  but  still  more  liberal-hearted,  since 
its  pulpit  taught  not  alone  truth  for  the  thinker, 
but  still  more  forcibly  the  all-captivating,  prophetic 
lesson  of  social  justice  and  righteousness. 


140  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

And  yet,  friends,  we  would  all  deceive  ourselves, 
did  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  our  liberalism 
has  failed  to  kindle  the  lamps  of  learning  in  our 
modern  homes  and  social  circles.  We  can  no  longer 
boast,  as  did  the  former  generation,  that  Judaism 
knows  of  no  distinction  between  laymen  and  clergy, 
because  familiarity  with  the  Torah  was  the  rule  and 
ignorance  the  exception.  The  hunger  after  the  word 
of  God,  the  thirst  after  the  deeper  fountains  of 
Jewish  knowledge  is  sadly  on  the  decrease  amongst 
"the  people  of  the  Book."  It  is  true,  and  I  am  proud 
to  state  it  here,  that  Sinai's  Rabbi  and  Sinai  Congre- 
gation have  at  all  times  manifested  their  ardent 
devotion  and  active  zeal  for  the  propagation  and 
promotion  of  Jewish  learning,  the  one  as  an  inspir- 
ing influence  and  teacher  of  many  of  our  students 
and  the  other  as  the  generous-hearted  supporter  of 
the  Hebrew  Union  College.  But  we  need  more  of 
the  light  and  more  of  the  oil  for  the  Menorah,  more 
lamps  and  more  lights  for  the  whole  household  of 
American  Israel.  May  the  new  field  opened  here 
bring  to  you  and  all  of  us  a  greater  harvest.  May  the 
light  that  emanates  here  from  pulpit  and  Sabbath 
School  shine  forth  with  ever  greater  effulgence  that 
"all  thy  sons  and  daughters  be  disciples  of  the  Lord, 
and  great  be  the  peace  of  thy  children." 

But  the  crowning  glory  of  this  new  Temple  lies 
in  its  being  a  house  for  the  gathering  of  far  larger 
numbers  than  Congregation  and  worshipping  as- 
semblies, a  Beth  ha  Kneseth,  a  house  for  communal 
life  and  social  service  in  its  best  and  most  compre- 
hensive meaning.  Yet,  far  from  being  an  innovation, 


THREEFOLD  PURPOSE  OF  THE  SYNAGOG         141 

a  departure,  this  is  but  a  restoration  of  the  house  of 
God  to  its  pristine  glory.  The  very  Kiddush  that 
used  to  be  recited  in  the  Synagog  on  Sabbath  eve 
and  morn  was  originally  intended  for  the  poor  and 
homeless  that  were  housed  and  fed  in  the  adjoining 
rooms  devoted  to  benevolence  and  redeeming  love. 
Your  work  here,  then,  is  but  an  extension  of  the 
ancient  practice.  And  to  this  is  added  a  feature  of 
great  significance.  For,  whereas  our  mode  of  worship 
and  our  religious  views,  so  different  from  the  tra- 
ditional ones,  necessarily  create  divisions  in  our  camp 
between  Orthodoxy  and  Reform,  here  the  Scriptural 
word  holds  true:  "The  work  of  righteousness  estab- 
lishes peace."  Here  all  differences  are  forgotten. 
Here  Jew  meets  Jew.  Here  man  helps  and  uplifts 
man.  Here  rich  and  poor,  strong  and  feeble,  high 
and  low  come  together  as  children  of  the  One  God 
and  Father.  Here  the  commonest  needs  and  require- 
ments of  man  will  be  hallowed  by  the  principle  of 
mutual  helpfulness  and  love.  And  well  might  the 
Scriptural  verse:  "In  that  day  there  shall  be  upon 
the  bells  and  the  pots,  'Holy  to  the  Lord,'  "  be  in- 
scribed on  your  door,  or  else  the  classical  motto: 
Introite  et  hie  dii  sunt:  "Enter,  for  here,  too,  the 
Deity  dwells!" 

Of  one  of  the  noblest  martyrs  of  the  Hadrianic 
persecution,  R.  Hananya  ben  Teradion,  the  touching 
story  is  told  that,  when  on  the  road  to  his  glorious 
death  he  met  his  companion  and  fellow-martyr, 
Eleazar  ben  Parta,  who  was  both  a  master  of  the 
law  and  a  philanthropic  worker,  to  whom  he  said: 
"Happy  thou  -who  didst  not  merely  study  the  law 


142  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


of  truth,  but  also  practiced  the  law  of  tighteousness 
and  benevolence  throughout  life,  while  I,  alas, 
have  only  been  a  teacher  of  the  Torah,  but  have 
failed  to  translate  the  law  into  life  and  practical 
love."  Only  when  he  was  reminded  of  the  fact  that 
he,  too,  had  done  deeds  of  kindness  and  helpfulness 
when  the  occasion  offered,  did  he  feel  comforted;  for, 
"Only  the  practice  of  righteousness  and  goodness 
brings  God  as  a  living  God  of  truth  home  to  our 
fellow-men."  What  a  beautiful  lustre  does  this 
Talmudic  passage  cast  on  Judaism's  teaching  of 
old,  and  on  this  most  modern  house  of  God!  Sinai 
Temple  was  always  among  the  very  foremost  in  works 
of  philanthropy  and  education,  of  mutual  help- 
fulness and  social  service,  thus  translating  Sinai's 
teaching  into  practical  life  and  rendering  religion 
a  living  power  to  win  all  hearts  for  the  God  of  Israel, 
and  its  blessings  will  grow  with  the  enlarged  oppor- 
tunities. 

So  may  your  Temple  with  its  three-fold  splendor, 
your  Congregation  and  Rabbi  with  the  three-fold 
crown  of  glory  earn  three-fold,  nay  thousand-fold 
blessing  from  Jew  and  Gentile  near  and  far,  and  peace 
and  joy  unending  come  to  you  from  God,  whose 
Shekinah  may  ever  rest  upon  his  place!  Amen. 


14. 
THE  ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM.* 

AT  THE  beginning  of  this  century,  Schleiermacher, 
the  great  Christian  theologian,  brought  about 
a  great  religious  revival  throughout  enlightened 
Germany,  by  delivering  a  course  of  lectures  on  re- 
ligion before  unbelievers  for  the  purpose  of  convincing 
them  that  religion  is  the  cry  and  need  of  all  ages. 

Such  a  course  of  lectures  has  been  proposed  by 
the  Young  Men's  Hebrew  Association  of  this 
city  for  the  purpose  of  reviving  Jewish  sentiment  and 
the  Jewish  faith  in  our  midst.  And  speaking  under 
its  auspices  to-night,  I  propose  to  show  that  the  basis 
of  Judaism  is  Jewish  Ethics  and  that,  as  it  has 
substantially  carried  the  world  for  the  last  two 
thousand  years,  so  it  will  hold  and  support  and  car- 
ry humanity  for  many  thousand  years  to  come, 
until,  indeed,  its  highest  hopes  and  ideals  will  have 
been  realized. 

Ethics  is  the  dame  of  fashion,  much  courted  now, 
the  pet-child  of  the  age.  Religion — poor  thing! — is 
declared  to  be  very  old.  Her  bright  days  are  said  to 
be  over.  She  is  expected  soon  to  take  the  veil  and 
go  to  a  nunnery.  For  who  would  marry  her,  God 
himself  being  on  trial?  "There  is  nothing  new  under 

*Address  delivered  before  the  Young  Men's  Hebrew  Associa- 
tion, at  Temple  Beth  El,  New  York,   December  20,  1886. 


144  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


the  sun."  In  the  classic  land  of  Greece,  ethics  was  first 
offered  as  a  substitute  for  religion  at  a  time  when  the 
very  foundations  of  society  were  sapped,  and  the 
old  home-spun  virtue  and  piety  of  those  pagans  scoffed 
and  sneered  at.  The  old  Olympian  gods  with  their 
frivolous  passion  and  lewdness  had  become  a  laughing- 
stock, when  quaint  and  whimsical  Socrates  beleaguered 
the  streets  of  Athens  to  offer  virtue  as  the  most  de- 
sirable good  to  every  passer-by.  "If  the  world's 
rulers  do  not  prefer  the  just  to  the  unjust,  it  is  better 
to  die  than  to  live,"  said  the  lofty-spirited  heathen 
who  put  the  seal  of  martyrdom  upon  his  protest 
against  pagan  folly.  His  strange  life  and  his  tragic 
death  gave  rise  to  the  grand  ethical  system  of  Plato, 
with  Divine  Goodness  as  its  central  idea;  then  came 
Aristotle  and  the  Epicureans  and  the  Stoics,  forming 
different  schools  and  systems  of  ethics.  Still,  how- 
ever grand  and  admirable  as  monuments  of  the  Gre- 
cian genius,  they  could  not  save  the  ancient  world 
from  shipwreck.  Philosophy  can  never  replace  reli- 
gion. When  once  the  heart-strings  binding  man  to 
a  heavenly  Commander  of  life  are  broken  asunder, 
the  earth  quakes  and  humanity  quivers  and  shivers 
with  pain  and  agony,  until  the  God  is  found  who  would 
hold  and  redeem  the  world  anew.  The  name  of  the 
great  I  Am,  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  had  to  be  spelled  out 
to  summon  man  to  duty  anew. 

I  need  not  point  to  old  China  where  the  sage 
Confucius,  nor  to  India  where  the  princely  hermit 
Gautama  Buddha  attempted  to  replace  the  old 
religions  by  new  ethical  doctrines  and  with  similar 
results.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  present  tide  runs 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  145 

in  parallel  lines.  The  flood-gates  of  the  heart  have 
been  dried  up  by  rationalism.  Skepticism  has 
shaken  the  strongholds  of  religion.  Critical  and 
historical  research  has  undermined  the  dogmas  of 
the  Church,  the  creeds.  Revelation  and  retribution 
are  arraigned  by  doubt,  ridiculed  by  blasphemers. 
Therefore  the  cry  goes  forth  for  humanitarian 
ethics. 

At  the  dawn  of  the  new  era  Baruch  Spinoza,  the 
Jew,  dissatisfied  with  Church  and  Synagog,  reared 
his  marvelous  edifice  of  ethics  on  the  foundation  of 
pure,  cold  reason,  and  in  his  train  followed  the  English 
moralists.  At  the  close  of  the  last  century  Immanuel 
Kant,  the  Robespierre  in  the  realm  of  thought,  after 
having  demolished  the  old  form  of  reasoning,  offered 
his  stern  philosophy  of  duty  built  on  "the  categorical 
imperative"  of  "thou  oughtst;"  and  soon  after  him 
August  Comte  in  France  started  social  ethics.  Since 
then  one  ethical  system  after  the  other  has  sprung  up 
to  embarrass  the  learned  no  less  than  the  multitude. 
In  the  former  century  it  took  a  man  of  the  size  of 
Moses  Mendelssohn,  Lessing's  Nathan  the  Wise, 
to  solve  the  dilemma  of  choosing  between  the  three 
great  religions,  in  pointing  to  the  old  Jewish  tale  of 
the  three  rings,  which  had  the  prize  accorded  to  the 
one  which  would  charm  most  by  fostering  heart- 
winning  virtue  and  love. 

Nowadays  it  is  rather  difficult  for  any  one  to 
decide  between  the  innumerable  ethical  theories 
presented,  egotistic  or  altruistic,  utilitarian  or  intui- 
tional, and  tell  which  is  the  best.  And  yet  you  hear 
constantly  the  demand  made  for  a  pure  and  simple 


146  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

morality  divested  of  religion,  the  kernel  without  the 
shell,  as  they  say.  Says  a  recent  writer  in  the  Popular 
Science  Monthly:  "God  cannot  make  morality.  He 
has  to  be  moral  himself  before  he  can  sanction  it, 
and  if  we  know  God  as  moral,  we  know  morality  apart 
from  the  idea  of  God.  The  problem  of  the  day, 
therefore,  is  the  formulation  and  enforcement  of  a 
natural  morality,  a  morality  resulting  from  the  nature 
of  man  and  the  conditions  of  his  existence."  Aside 
now  from  the  question,  whether  there  exists  such  a 
thing  as  natural  morality,  whether  this  is  not  a 
contradiction  in  itself — I  simply  ask:  Can  you 
enforce  morality?  How?  By  the  club  of  the  police- 
man? By  the  authority  of  the  State?  Or  by  society 
at  large?  This  is  no  morality.  A  morality  enforced 
from  without  is  no  longer  morality.  All  your  systems 
cannot  create  a  conscience,  cannot  put  that  sentinel 
before  the  gates  of  the  heart  and  make  him  ring  the 
bell  of  alarm  whenever  the  foe  comes  near.  Cut  loose 
from  religion,  ethics  is  but  a  broken  cistern  that 
holds  no  water.  However  delicious  the  fruit,  you 
cannot  make  it  grow  without  stem  and  blade.  Call 
your  conscience  a  magnetic  needle  in  the  direction 
of  the  right  and  the  good,  but  forget  not  that  without 
some  great  magnetic  power  around  and  above,  no 
needle  will  work.  Herbert  Spencer,  the  idol  of  almost 
every  American  college  graduate,  has  quite  recently 
been  mercilessly  cast  down  from  his  pedestal  by 
Sidgwick,  who  sums  up  his  survey  of  the  methods  of 
ethics  by  saying:  "Without  religious  sanction  or  a 
similar  assumption,  the  ethical  Cosmos  falls  back 
into  chaos,  and  ethical  science  cannot  be  constructed." 


His  opinion  is  endorsed  by  no  less  a  philosopher  than 
Wilhelm  Wundt,  one  of  the  master-minds  of  philo- 
sophical Germany  to-day,  in  his  recent  great  work  on 
"Ethics,"  in  which  he  emphasizes  "the  need  of  reli- 
gion, not  merely  as  the  means  of  elevating  man  to 
the  highest  morality,  but  as  holding  up  before  the 
human  race  a  common  purpose  and  scope,  the 
greatest  of  all  moral  truths,  which  alone  makes  life 
worth  living  for,  that  man  with  his  finite  ends  is 
linked  to  the  Infinite  Unity  with  its  infinite  ends, 
that  are  past  finding  out." 

The  fact  is,  the  whole  ethical  movement  of  the 
present  day  is  the  symptom  of  a  disease  rather  than 
a  cure.  Because  the  heart  of  the  social  machinery, 
emptied  of  its  life-blood,  does  not  work  well,  the  vital 
fluid  is  expected  to  run  from  brain  downwards  instead 
of  taking  its  regular  course  from  heart  to  brain. 
The  feverish  spasms  of  the  age  are  due  to  general 
debility,  in  consequence  of  the  low  temperature  of 
religion.  To  use  a  homely  illustration,  there  is  a 
woman  watching  days  and  nights  without  ceasing 
at  a  mother's  or  husband's  sick  bed,  not  even  allow- 
ing her  delicate  frame  the  necessary  rest,  amidst 
the  all-absorbing  care  and  anxiety  for  her  beloved 
one.  Offer  to  take  her  place,  to  give  her  respite  if 
but  for  a  few  hours,  and  she  would  refuse,  saying: 
"No;  never  will  I  leave  this  place  until  I  see  my  dear 
one  better."  But  how  great  is  your  astonishment, 
when,  after  a  few  weeks,  as  you  see  her  again  attend 
the  sick,  the  pathetic  words  fall  from  her  lips  in 
plaintive  strains:  "Oh,  duty!  stern  duty!  for  thy 
sake  I  hold  out  here,  sacrificing  my  life,  though  the 


148  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

task  is  hard!"  Is  that  the  same  true,  plain,  affection- 
ate, devoted  woman  you  saw  the  other  day?  The 
same  staunch-hearted,  good  soul  that  never  pon- 
dered, never  reasoned,  never  thought  of  herself? 
You  cannot  help  searching  for  the  strange  cause  that 
cast  a  shadow  upon  her  innermost  being,  a  spell  of 
doubt,  a  poison-drop  of  bitterness  into  her  heart  to 
chill  her  affection,  that  she  now  is  in  need  of  a  stimu- 
lant, a  tonic.  What  she  to-day  calls  duty  is  to  serve 
as  substitute  for  the  natural  bent  of  her  soul,  for  the 
unaffected  goodness  and  piety  that  are  fast  giving 
out.  There  is  a  break  in  the  harmony  of  her  life. 
Such  a  break  we  observe  to-day.  The  tide  of  ethical 
culture  indicates  a  transition,  a  change  in  the  world's 
religion.  People  are  tired  of  walking  in  the  narrow 
grooves  of  dogma  and  ritual.  They  sigh  for  a  religion 
which  is  broad  as  the  whole  man,  as  wide  as  the  globe, 
as  high  as  the  heavens,  and  deep  enough  to  embrace 
all  life,  all  thought  and  sentiment  and  make  it  sweet 
and  cheerful  and  holy.  And  the  question  with  which 
we  are  deeply  concerned  to-night  is,  whether  we  are 
safe,  whether  tide  and  wind  are  favorable  to  our 
ship,  whether  Judaism  is  drifting  in  a  direction  to 
meet  these  demands. 

I  say,  it  is.  For  Judaism  is  the  only  religion  which 
made  humanity,  the  moral  up-building  and  perfection 
of  man,  the  ethical  structure  of  society,  its  starting 
point  and  its  end.  Judaism  alone  has  the  salvation 
and  happiness  of  all  men  and  nations  here  on  earth 
as  its  goal.  Judaism  alone  among  all  religions  has 
the  welfare  of  society  at  large  and  not  merely  the 
individual  salvation  in  view.  Jewish  ethics  is  human- 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  149 


itarian,  is  cosmopolitan  and  philanthropic.  Owing 
to  long  oppression  and  seclusion,  the  Jew  had  well- 
nigh  unlearned  the  fact  that  before  speaking  to 
Abraham,  God  spoke  to  man;  that  before  Israel  was 
made  the  covenant-people,  God  made  a  covenant 
with  the  whole  race  of  man;  that,  in  fact,  Judaism  is 
based  on  a  Revelation  of  God  to  all  men;  that  the 
Bible  opens  with  the  first  records  of  man,  pointing 
to  the  great  brotherhood  of  man  as  the  final  goal  of 
history;  that  our  sacred  Prophets  first  voiced  the 
eternal  rights,  the  solemn  demands,  the  grand  hopes 
and  ideals  of  man;  that  our  Psalmists  rung  forth 
in  matchless  strains,  in  undying  melodies  as  from  the 
world's  harp  the  deep  longings,  the  awful  pangs 
and  the  glorious  thanksgivings  of  the  heart  of  man; 
that  throughout  our  entire  literature  and  history 
runs  like  a  golden  thread  the  idea  that  all  the  doings 
of  the  nations  are  but  the  preparation,  the  fitting-up 
of  the  earth  for  the  time  when  humanity  is  but 
one,  one  kingdom  of  divine  righteousness  and  love. 
Yet,  this  was  the  spell  by  which  the  Roman  empire 
was  captured  for  Israel's  God.  You  are  all,  no  doubt, 
familiar  with  the  answer  Hillel,  half  a  century  before 
the  Christian  era,  gave  to  the  Roman  who  mockingly 
wanted  to  hear  the  Jewish  Law  expounded  while  he 
stood  before  him  on  one  foot:  "Do  not  do  unto 
others  what  you  do  not  want  others  to  do  unto  you! 
This  is  the  law;  the  rest  is  merely  the  commentary." 
Recent  research,  however,  has  placed  it  beyond  doubt 
that  these  and  similar  lessons  of  simple  and  pure 
humanitarian  ethics  have  gone  forth  in  Greek  garb 
from  Jewish  writers  in  the  shape  of  sermons,  of 


150  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Jewish  mission  tracts,  of  poems  under  the  guise  of 
ancient  seers  and  singers  of  heathendom,  to  captivate 
the  Greek  and  Roman  world  centuries  before  Chris- 
tianity appeared  on  the  stage.  In  the  garb  of  the 
Greek  philosopher  and  poet  and  also  of  a  simple 
pedler,  the  versatile  cosmopolitan  Jew  of  Alexandria 
carried  his  Jewish  lessons  of  Ethics  into  the  heart  of 
paganism,  to  make  imperial  Rome  through  her  very 
poet  laureate,  Virgil,  sigh  for  the  millenium  of  peace 
and  righteousness.  Indeed,  Judaism  ploughed  the 
field  and  cast  the  seeds  hundreds  of  years  before  the 
Church  came  to  reap  the  golden  harvest  and  take  all 
the  credit  to  herself.  Christianity  misspelled  the 
name.  It  was  not  a  Jew,  but  the  Jew  who  built  and 
cemented  a  tottering  and  shaken  world  anew. 

Jewish  ethics  gave  life  a  higher  meaning  and 
purpose,  made  it  earnest,  made  it  real.  It  is  an  old 
truism:  As  man  is,  so  is  his  God.  What  was  life 
to  the  Greek  but  a  race  for  pleasure  and  sport,  a 
play-ground?  Their  men  and  their  gods  were,  as 
Heinrich  Heine  said,  "but  jesters  compared  with  the 
serious  Hebrew."  Still,  Judaism  kept  alike  remote 
from  the  gloomy,  despondent  view  of  the  Hindoo 
hermit,  alike  distant  from  asceticism  and  frivolous 
gaiety.  It  beholds  in  the  whole  of  life,  with  its  dark 
and  bright  sides,  the  working  of  a  good  and  holy  God 
everywhere,  thus  rendering  it  ever  hopeful  and  cheer- 
ful. And  this  optimistic,  yet  sober  view  of  life,  this 
vigorous  idealism  made  the  prophet,  moulded  the 
Jew,  created  the  Bible,  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New,  and  determined  the  course  of  human  history. 
Matthew  Arnold  says:  "Light  and  Sweetness," 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  151 


that  is  beauty  and  clearness,  art,  science  and 
philosophy  "came  from  the  Greeks",  "salvation" 
that  is  the  inner  beauty  and  harmony  of  life,  law, 
righteousness  and  holiness  "from  the  Jews."  It  was 
not  so  much  the  idea  of  the  unity  as  the  faith  in 
a  moral  government  of  the  world  or,  to  use  Matthew 
Arnold's  words,  "The  power  that  maketh  for  right- 
eousness," which  made  humanity  kneel  before  the 
Jewish  God.  The  abstract  notion  of  a  Divine  Unity 
has  been  arrived  at  also  elsewhere  by  philosophical 
speculation.  But  none  beheld  God  face  to  face,  see- 
ing His  glory  mirrored  in  justice,  kindness  and  good- 
ness, as  did  Moses.  Just  as  the  magnet  attracts  the 
iron  by  virtue  of  its  chemical  affinities,  so  did  the  Jew 
through  his  ethical  qualities  touch  upon  the  moral 
essence  of  God,  thus  striking  the  very  key-note  of  relig- 
ion and  humanity.  "Before  revealing  the  Law  of 
Israel,"  says  the  Midrash,  "the  Lord  offered  it  to  the 
heathen  nations,  but  they  refused  it,  being  neither 
chaste,  nor  kind,  neither  fond  of  justice  nor  of  rever- 
ential piety."  This  means  to  convey  the  great  psy- 
chological truth  that,  through  his  finer  humanity,  his 
Abraham  nature,  the  Jew  found  the  true  God  for 
mankind,  and  this  ethical  monotheism  could  not 
help  again  refining  and  hallowing  life  and  sentiment. 
From  the  Jewish  conception  of  a  just  and  holy  God 
emanated  the  sacredness  of  life,  of  home,  of  honor, 
of  property  and  labor,  the  power  of  justice  and  love, 
while  through  these  very  virtues  God's  nature  was 
discerned.  In  the  prophet's  mind  the  human  and  the 
divine  melted  and  became  one. 

Compare  the  ethical  standard  of  Greece  and  Rome 
with    the   Jewish.      What  was   the   scale   man   was 


152  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

measured  by  in  Greece?  Only  as  a  member  of  the 
State,  only  as  far  as  he  was  of  use  to  the  nation,  he 
was  valued.  A  foreigner  had  no  rights,  no  claim  upon 
the  law.  A  barbarian,  says  the  great  Aristotle,  was 
less  than  a  horse.  Still  worse  off  was  the  slave.  He 
was  not  treated  any  better  than  any  other  piece  of 
property.  And  can  there  be  a  home  where  woman  is 
but  a  tool  in  the  service  of  race  preservation,  a 
chattel  excluded  from  decent  society  of  men,  yea, 
even  from  the  table  of  her  husband,  unless  when  she 
has  to  wait  on  him,  yet  never  his  equal;  where  pure, 
chaste  love  is  rarely  found,  and  the  marriage  vow  of 
little  account?  What  name  is  dearer  than  that  of 
mother  and  child?  Yet  its  spell  cannot  have  been 
felt  where  the  father  could  at  pleasure  disown  his 
tender  infant,  and  with  immunity  expose  it  to  cruel 
death.  Alas  for  the  invalid  and  the  cripple!  Who 
cared  for  them,  they  being  of  little  benefit  to  the 
community?  Murder  seemed  to  be  the  best  expedient 
for  these  unfortunate  ones.  Nor  did  the  law  make 
any  provision  for  the  needy,  the  orphans  and  widows. 
They  had  to  thank  their  good  fortune  if,  on  some  un- 
usual occasion,  one  of  the  wealthy  citizens  would 
give  special  proof  of  his  free,  noble  birth  (this  is  the 
original  meaning  of  generosity  or  liberality),  by 
distributing  bread  or  money  in  large  quantities  in 
order  to  court  public  favor.  For  the  rest  they  had 
to  live  on  beggary.  Such  was  life  in  classic  antiquity. 
Life-long  toil,  oppression  and  woe  on  one  side; 
sensual  pleasure  and  unbridled  passion  on  the  other. 
What  a  contrast  to  Judea!  There  you  find  man's 
dignity  as  God's  child  recognized  in  the  stranger,  the 


153 


laborer,  the  slave,  even  in  the  foe  and  the  criminal; 
woman  esteemed  as  man's  helpmate,  as  the  builder 
of  the  home;  purity  and  chastity  made  the  founda- 
tion of  domestic  happiness;  maternal  feelings  taken 
regard  of,  even  in  the  dumb  animal;  life  treasured 
as  a  sacred  trust,  whether  in  the  old  or  the  ailing; 
all  possible  respect  shown  to  the  workingman; 
laws  given  to  provide  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
poor,  and  charitable  societies  established  in  every 
town  to  take  care  of  the  helpless,  the  sick  and  the 
shelterless;  the  orphans  well  housed  by  private 
generosity;  finally,  the  Sabbath  day  hailed  every- 
where as  the  hallowed  harbinger  of  rest,  comfort, 
elevation  and  instruction  by  all,  high  and  low, 
servant  and  master. 

Well  could  Philo  at  Alexandria  and  Josephus 
in  Judea  challenge  the  heathen  to  tell  whether  their 
mode  of  living  matched  the  Jewish  one.  Indeed, 
those  people  know  but  little  of  real  Judaism  who 
find  Jewish  ethics  circumscribed  by  the  letter  of  the 
law  which,  by  way  of  compromise,  allowed  and 
sanctioned  for  those  barbarous  times,  polygamy, 
slavery,  retaliation  and  cruel  warfare.  In  order  to 
know  Jewish  ethics,  you  must  search  after  the  spirit 
which  dictated  the  law,  which  created  the  Bible,  the 
Sabbath  and  Judaism  in  its  entirety,  aiming,  indeed, 
at  the  realization  of  the  lofty  prophetical  ideas  which, 
in  broadness,  width  and  depth,  eclipse  every  other 
ethical  system.  And  this  spirit  penetrated  Roman 
society  as  a  leavening  force,  or,  as  Mommsen  puts 
it,  as  "a  power  of  decomposition,"  changing  it  from 
bottom  to  top.  It  was  not  the  triune  God  of  the  late 


154  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


church  dogma,  but  the  Jewish  God;  not  the  New 
Testament  canonized  no  earlier  than  the  third  cen- 
tury, but  the  Jewish  Holy  Writ,  the  Old  Testament, 
that  wrought  the  change.  Our  civilization  is  Chris- 
tian only  in  so  far  as  the  Church  took  the  Decalogue, 
the  Sabbath,  the  poor  laws,  the  marriage  laws,  the 
whole  work  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Jews  to  put  a 
narrower  construction  upon  it,  turning  the  great 
Messianic  hope,  the  goal  of  humanity,  into  a 
dogma  for  an  intolerant  and  exclusive  sect. 

Berthold  Auerbach  once  said:  "I  am  a  Jew, 
in  so  far  as  I  protest  against  Christianity."  He 
would  have  done  better,  had  he  emphasized  the 
positive  side.  Leaving  dogma  out  of  view,  I  may 
briefly  state  the  difference  between  Jewish  and 
Christian  ethics  to  be  this:  The  prophet  says  (Micah 
vi.  8),  "Thou  hast  been  told,  Oh  man,  what  is  good, 
and  what  the  Lord  thy  God  requires  of  thee:  the 
practice  of  righteousness,  the  love  of  kindness,  and 
an  humble  walking  with  thy  God."  To  put  it  into 
plain  words:  Be  just,  be  kind,  be  humble  by  meas- 
uring yourself  by  what  God,  the  highest  ideal  of 
perfection,  demands.  First  comes  justice.  First 
do  what  is  right.  Offend  none,  encroach  upon  the 
rights  of  no  one.  Recognize  and  establish  the  rights 
of  all  fellow-beings.  But  this  alone  will  not  do. 
There  is  want;  there  is  need  of  assistance,  of  sympa- 
thy. You  must  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  suffering 
and  the  helpless.  You  must  help  all.  You  must  do 
more  than  you  are  bound  to  do  by  right.  You  must 
be  kind.  You  must  show  brotherly  love,  compassion 
and  piety  to  all.  You  must  live  for  others,  after 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  155 


having  provided  for  your  own  well-being.  Finally,  be 
humble.  Be  modest.  However  great  and  good  you 
are,  you  fall  short  of  what  you  might  and  ought  to 
be.  With  all  you  are,  do,  or  know,  you  are  but  little 
compared  with  the  great  Ruler  of  Life. 

Now,  the  order  of  these  three  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  Jewish  ethics  was  simply  inverted  by  Chris- 
tianity. It  said:  First  be  humble,  so  humble  as  to 
no  longer  believe  in  your  own  reason,  in  your  own 
strength  to  do  good  and  to  be  good,  unless  you  rely 
on  the  priest  and  the  mediating  savior.  Then  be 
kind;  so  kind  as  to  offer  him  your  right  cheek  who 
smites  you  on  the  left;  so  kind  as  to  take  all  you  have 
and  give  it  to  the  poor;  so  kind  as  to  love  him  who 
hurts  you,  even  your  enemy,  who  refuses  to  accept 
you  as  friend,  however  much  you  try  to  do  him  good. 
And  for  the  rest,  be  just. 

To  be  sure,  on  this  principle  no  State  can  be  built, 
no  society  established,  no  order  and  no  law  main- 
tained. Consequently,  the  world,  the  life  that  now 
is,  had  to  be  handed  over  to  the  Power  of  Evil,  to 
the  enemy  of  God.  A  double  code  of  morality  sprang 
up:  one  for  religion  and  another  for  life;  one  for  the 
priests  and  monks  and  the  Church,  and  another  for 
the  laity  and  the  State;  one  concerning  believers 
and  another  one  concerning  unbelievers.  Love  with- 
out religion  finally  led  the  Church  to  burn  the  bodies 
of  heretics  in  order  to  save  their  souls;  or  to  allow 
people  to  steal  leather  from  the  rich  in  order  to  give 
shoes  to  the  poor.  Morals  and  religion  ran  in  opposite 
ways;  and  the  more  the  unknown  hereafter,  the 
salvation  in  the  next  world  was  dwelt  upon  and 


156  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


rendered  the  only  object  of  human  life,  the  more 
was  the  very  soul  and  essence  of  morality  perverted. 
For  morality  is  nothing  if  not  pure  unselfishness, 
while  religion  often  seemed  to  foster  only  refined, 
heart-hardened  selfishness.  Even  the  works  of 
charity  and  love  received  the  flavor  of  offensive 
narrowness  and  obtrusive  fanaticism.  Surely  enough, 
man  rose  in  opposition  to  such  morality  as  soon  as 
he  began  again  to  make  use  of  his  reason.  He  cried 
out  for  a  power  that  would  render  him  happy  and 
cheerful  rather  than  wretched  and  miserable.  And 
this  power  appeared  in  the  shape  of  worldliness,  in 
the  shape  of  comfort  and  pleasure,  of  commerce  and 
industry,  of  art  and  science,  chiefly,  if  not  altogether, 
ushered  into  life  by  the  Moor  and  the  Jew. 

With  the  Reformation  the  work  of  purification 
began,  and  morality  was  placed  on  a  higher  level. 
The  Old  Testament,  thus  long  neglected,  was  unclasp- 
ed and  read  anew.  Step  by  step  Christianity  retreated 
from  its  old  position  and  came  nearer  to  the  Jewish 
view  of  morality.  The  world's  demands,  the  State, 
the  people,  the  school  and  common  life  were  recog- 
nized by  religion,  while  the  State,  on  the  other  hand, 
took  charge  of  religious  institutions  like  the  Sabbath 
and  others.  God  and  Caesar  no  longer  appeared  as 
antagonistic,  at  least  in  free  Protestant  countries. 
Still,  the  right  peace  and  harmony  between  religion 
and  morals  has  not  been  established  as  yet.  Chris- 
tianity still  overrules  humanity.  Christian  love  and 
charity  are  still  far  from  being  cosmopolitan  and 
free  from  sectarian  bias.  In  fact,  the  great  philan- 
thropists are  found  to  stand  outside  of  the  Church. 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  157 


The  dominant  sect  has  nowhere  outgrown  sectarian- 
ism in  a  manner  to  recognize  the  right  of  conscience, 
the  claims  of  other  opinions  but  those  of  the  ruling 
sects  and  races.  Religion  and  science  have  hardly 
begun  to  clasp  hands.  Church  morals  and  Sunday 
morals  still  differ  from  common  and  everyday  morals. 

And  again,  humanitarian  ethics  takes  little  regard 
of  religion,  of  the  inner  working  of  the  soul.  It  meas- 
ures the  deed,  but  fails  to  weigh  the  motive,  to 
judge  and  touch  the  inner  springs  of  action.  Yet 
can  morality  be  complete  and  perfect  without  purity 
of  heart  and  nobility  of  sentiment?  Are  the  foun- 
dations of  society  sound  and  safe  so  long  as  the 
commands:  "Thou  shalt  not  steal!"  "Thou  shalt 
not  commit  adultery!"  are  not  followed  and  sup- 
ported by  the  command:  "Thou  shalt  not  covet?" 
What  are  justice  and  love  without  a  holy  and  stern 
Judge  and  Lawgiver  on  high,  watching  the  scales 
and  shielding  the  pillars  of  life  and  holding  all  classes 
and  sects  and  nations  and  individuals  together  by 
invisible  and  inseparable  links?  How  can  the  equilib- 
rium of  humanity  be  maintained  without  humble- 
ness before  God,  by  which  alone  war  and  strife, 
wrong-doing  and  passion  can  be  checked  and  kept 
at  bay? 

Here  is  the  place  for  Judaism  to  step  in  and  help 
human  society  in  joining  morality  and  religion  anew. 
I  hold  that  the  Jew,  with  his  broad  philanthropy,  his 
keen  sense  of  justice,  his  sound,  practical  view  of 
life,  is  destined  to  humanize  religion  and  to  religionize 
humanity.  If  to-day  the  vital  element  of  Judaism 
seems  to  have  all  gone  into  the  extremities,  if  the 


158  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


hand  and  the  brain  do  all  the  work  of  religion  and 
the  heart,  the  seat  of  devotion  and  reverential  piety, 
remains  cold  and  barren,  it  is  probably  for  the  reason 
that  the  Jew  is  called  upon  to  interlink  the  different 
parts  of  humanity  by  his  broadness  and  liberality 
of  mind  and  heart.  He  is  to  reclaim  humanity  for 
his  God,  the  only  One.  He  is  to  point  anew  to  the 
Decalogue,  to  the  golden  rule:  Love  God  and  love 
thy  fellow-man;  to  the  Jewish  principles  of  ethics 
as  the  only  stable  and  immutable  groundwork  of 
social  happiness.  He  is  to  teach  the  world  anew  that 
religion  does  not  mean  to  people  the  heaven  with 
souls,  but  to  render  the  earth  the  dwelling-place  of 
the  divine  glory.  He  is  to  show  that  reason  and 
knowledge,  science  and  art,  industry  and  commerce, 
all  the  various  pursuits  of  man  are  but  rounds  in  the 
ladder  of  perfection,  leading  up  to  God  as  the  highest 
ideal  and  the  only  source  of  truth,  justice,  love  and 
holiness;  that  all  human  types  of  perfection  are  but 
parts  and  signs  of  God's  greatness,  but  no  perfect 
and  absolute  ideals,  or  else  they  turn  into  idols  which 
deprive  man  of  his  heaven-born  nobility.  He  is  to 
reassert  and  proclaim  anew  that  religion,  whose 
ethics  takes  full  cognizance  of  all  the  demands  of  life, 
includes  everything  and  excludes  nothing  that  is 
noble  and  good  and  true  in  man,  and  is,  therefore, 
the  broadest  and  purest  and  safest  of  all  moral 
systems. 

Look  into  the  cause  of  all  the  troubles,  strifes, 
wars  and  crises  which  agitate  human  society  at  pres- 
ent, and  you  can  trace  it  to  some  conflict  between 
justice  and  love,  between  selfish  claims  and  self- 


ETHICAL  BASIS  OF  JUDAISM  159 


surrender  to  law  and  duty;  and  only  a  religion  which 
floods  the  entire  sphere  of  life  from  center  to  cir- 
cumference with  the  glow  of  morality,  only  the  fear 
and  love  of  a  holy  and  good  God  can  truly  and 
finally  solve  them.  Yet  such  a  religion,  such  a  God 
Judaism  offers. 

It  is  high  time,  indeed,  for  the  Jew  to  open  his 
eyes  and  see  what  a  treasure  Divine  Providence  has 
placed  in  his  trust.  It  is  high  time  for  him  to  learn 
how  to  appreciate  it,  and  to  make  the  world  appre- 
ciate it.  Nor  will  the  mere  doctrine,  the  theory  do. 
It  must  be  carried  abroad.  It  must  become  a  life- 
power.  It  must  be  practiced.  Of  Abraham,  our 
ancestor,  we  are  told  that,  whensoever  he  tendered  the 
hospitalities  of  his  house  to  the  needy  and  the  strangers 
that  passed  by  his  tent,  he  would  receive  no  thanks, 
but  pointed  to  God  on  High  who,  after  endowing 
him  with  His  blessing,  made  him  the  steward  of 
charity.  And  thus  he  won  the  heart  of  man  for  the 
religious  truths  he  proclaimed.  The  modern  Jew 
deserves  all  credit  for  his  philanthropy  and  charity 
and  cosmopolitan  liberality.  But  he  fails  to  point 
heavenward  and  acknowledge  God  as  his  Lord  and 
Master.  The  Jewish  home,  Jewish  virtue,  piety  and 
purity  of  life  are  no  longer  what  they  were  in  times 
of  seclusion.  How  dare  we  hope  to  be  teachers  and 
models  of  ethics,  so  long  as  our  aims  are  so  low  and 
our  thoughts  only  bent  on  sensual  pleasure  and 
material  gain;  so  long  as  we  do  not  rise  above  the 
sphere  of  selfishness  and  spread  the  wings  of  our 
souls  to  soar  up  to  the  realm  of  the  ideal  and  come 
within  the  magnetic  reach  of  eternal  truths?  In 
other  words,  without  religion? 


160          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

But  if  certain  signs  deceive  not,  a  reaction  has 
set  in,  an  earnest  desire  is  felt  of  doing  better.  Well, 
may  we  not  derive  some  encouragement  from  the 
Maccabean  festival  that  is  before  our  doors,  which 
reminds  us  that  one  single  Jew  held  forth  the  igniting 
spark  to  set  the  whole  people  ablaze  with  love  and 
devotion  for  God,  for  the  true  and  the  good,  so  that 
one  of  the  most  glorious  victories  human  history 
records  has  been  won  under  the  flag  upon  which, 
in  letters  of  fire,  the  words  were  inscribed:  Mi 
Kamocha  Ba  Elim  Adonay — "Who  among  the  mighty 
ones  is  like  Thee,  oh  Lord!"  So  let  us  hope  and  trust 
that  the  Maccabean  spirit  is  still  alive  in  our  midst, 
still  kindling  the  lights  and  the  fires  of  pure  religion 
in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  Jews  to  make  the 
cause  of  truth,  the  Jewish  faith,  the  Jewish  God, 
Jewish  ethics,  win  the  victory  over  the  world. 


15. 
ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD.* 

THE  subject  on  which  I  propose  to  speak  to  you 
has  become  the  Shibboleth  of  the  parties  in 
Jewry  to-day.  Strange  to  say,  men  who  have  never 
before  been  identified  with  the  Synagog  are  acclaimed 
as  mouth-pieces  of  Judaism  while  denying  that  the 
Jew  has  a  religious  mission.  Under  the  caption  of 
Nationalism,  that  ominous  word  which  has  plunged 
the  whole  civilized  world  into  the  most  horrible 
of  all  wars  in  history,  they  want  to  turn  us,  who 
are  happy  and  proud  of  our  American  citizenship,  into 
a  political  nation  and  thus  make  us  aliens  in  the  land 
that  has  given  us  liberty  and  equal  opportunity  with 
all  our  fellow-citizens.  Not  satisfied  with  the  coloni- 
zation of  a  million  or  more  of  Jews  in  the  Holy  Land, 
which  would  be  feasible  and  acceptable  to  all  and 
sympathetic  also  to  non-Jewish  men  of  power  and 
influence,  these  Zionists  would  deprive  the  Jew  of 
his  glorious  diadem  of  priesthood  and  cast  aside  his 
crown  of  the  Torah,  which  has  ever  been  more 
precious  to  him  than  life  itself,  only  to  have  him  made 
the  sole  owner  of  a  little  territory  and  the  builder  of 
a  little  State  such  as  is  Serbia  or  Greece.  As  if  this 
were  the  end  and  goal  of  Israel's  unique  history,  and 
as  if  thereby  the  great  Jewish  Question,  whether 

*Address  delivered  at  Temple  Israel,  Boston,  Nov.  7,  1915. 


162  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

from  an  economic  or  a  historical  point  of  view,  could 
be  solved!  It  seems  to  me  that  there  can  be  no 
more  timely  nor  more  important  subject  for  the  rabbi 
to  discuss,  not  in  any  polemical  spirit  but  in  a  calm 
and  reasonable  manner,  than  Israel's  mission  in  the 
world.  In  doing  so,  I  take  the  word  of  the  great  seer 
of  the  Exile,  the  so-called  second  Isaiah,  for  my 
text:  "The  people  that  I  have  created  for  Me,  shall 
relate  My  praise  among  the  nations." 

Believing  with  me,  as  I  trust  you  all  do,  in  the 
God  of  history,  in  an  all-ruling  Providence  direct- 
ing the  destinies  of  nations,  whom,  by  the  way,  the 
Zionist  leader  Nordau  flatly  denied  in  a  book  which 
appeared  several  years  ago — we  cannot  but  assume 
that  the  Jew  has  a  divine  mission,  a  world-task  and 
a  world-duty  to  fulfill  in  the  world,  or  else  he  would 
have  vanished  from  history  long  ago.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  as  we  behold  design  and  purpose  in  creation, 
we  must  recognize  in  human  history  the  working 
out  of  a  higher  plan  in  which  each  nation  takes  its 
part.  Who  can  fail  to  see  that  Greece  with  her  art 
and  philosophy  and  Rome  with  her  jurisprudence 
and  statesmanship,  or  Egypt  with  her  architecture 
and  her  hieroglyphic  writings  and  Babylon  with 
her  astronomy  and  hoary  wisdom,  and  so  the  various 
nations  of  the  old,  medieval  and  modern  world,  have 
each  with  their  peculiar  powers  contributed  their 
share  to  the  ever-advancing  civilization  of  the  race 
in  accordance  with  the  plan  comprising  the  whole 
history  of  mankind.  There  is  however,  a  marked 
difference  between  all  these  and  the  chosen  people 
of  Israel.  For  in  vain  do  we  look  for  a  vision  or  an 


ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD  163 


intuition  on  the  part  of  any  of  these  that  they  have 
actually  received  such  a  life-task  or  mission  from  on 
high.  They  all  performed  their  work  instinctively, 
unconsciously  as  does  the  bee  in  gathering  its  honey, 
or  the  silk-worm  in  spinning  its  delicate  web  for  us. 
Only  the  Jewish  people  set  out  with  a  special  call 
from  heaven  to  go  forth  as  a  priest-people  and  as 
God's  holy  nation  to  win  the  world  about  for  its 
truth;  and  the  revelation  they  received  on  Sinai 
became  a  charge,  a  truth  entrusted  to  their  care  for 
all  generations  to  come.  Thus  is  the  story  of  Abraham 
their  ancestor  so  written  as  to  render  him,  as  he  wan- 
ders from  land  to  land  building  altars  to  the  God  of 
heaven  and  earth  and  proclaiming  His  name  among 
men,  the  prototype  and  pattern  of  a  missionary,  of 
a  preacher  and  teacher  of  the  monotheistic  truth 
among  the  Gentiles.  But  especially  when  the  sons 
of  Judah  had  been  carried  away  as  captives  from 
their  own  land  to  be  dispersed  all  over  the  globe, 
there  came  to  the  seer  of  the  Exile  the  wondrous 
message  of  God:  "It  is  not  enough  for  Me  to  restore 
the  tribes  of  Jacob  and  reunite  Israel.  I  shall  make 
thee  a  light  for  the  nations  and  a  covenant  inter- 
linking the  peoples.  .  .  Ye  are  My  witnesses, 
saith  the  Lord."  Here  was  announced  for  all  time 
the  unique  destiny  of  the  Jew. 

Our  mission  is  by  no  means  to  send  forth  men  to 
convert  the  non-Jewish  world  into  Jews.  For  us 
salvation  is  not  conditioned  on  the  acceptance  of  a 
creed.  Judaism  declares  through  its  sages  of  the 
Talmud  that  the  gates  of  eternal  bliss  are  swung 
wide  open  to  admit  the  righteous  of  all  creeds  or 


164  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

races.  "To  do  justly,  to  love  mercy  and  to  walk 
humbly  before  God"  is  all  that  is  required  of  man, 
says  the  prophet.  The  task  which  the  God  of  history 
has  assigned  to  us  is  to  unfold  and  spread  the  light  of 
the  monotheistic  truth  in  its  undimmed  splendor, 
ever  to  be  living  witnesses,  and  also  to  die,  if  needs  be, 
as  martyrs  for  the  Only  One  and  holy  God,  to  strive 
and  battle  and  also,  if  needs  be,  to  suffer  for  the  cause 
of  truth,  justice  and  righteousness,  and  thus  to  win 
the  nations,  the  races  and  creeds,  all  classes  of  men  by 
teaching  and  example,  by  a  life  of  mental  and  moral 
endeavor  as  well  as  of  incessant  self-sacrifice  and  ser- 
vice for  Israel's  religious  and  ethical  ideals. 

Have  you  done  so,  or  are  you  doing  so?,  asks  the 
scoffer  and  detractor  within  and  outside  our  camp. 
Well,  we  proudly  point  to  our  history  which  was 
throughout  our  whole  past  a  continuous  glorification 
and  sanctification  of  God.  We  point  to  our  matchless 
literature,  the  soul  and  essence  of  which  is  religious 
truth,  without  any  peer  and  parallel  in  any  other 
literature.  We  point  above  all  to  the  Book  of  Books, 
which  has  become  the  household  book  of  humanity 
and  which  is,  even  in  its  non-Jewish  garb,  flesh  of 
our  flesh  and  spirit  of  our  spirit.  The  product  of  the 
Jewish  genius,  it  has  given  the  world  its  religion  and 
its  ethics  and,  as  Matthew  Arnold  puts  it,  has  created 
four-fifths  of  our  whole  culture!  Yet  Israel's  monothe- 
istic truth  did  not  come  full-panoplied  from  the  brain 
of  a  Moses  or  from  the  heights  of  Sinai.  It  took  cen- 
turies upon  centuries  to  develop  it,  to  elucidate  and 
to  spiritualize  it.  Only  because  the  Jew  came  in 
touch  with  the  civilizations  of  antiquity  and  the 


ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD  165 

various  streams  of  thought  and  currents  of  ideas 
throughout  the  ages,  his  religion  went  through  that 
process  of  growth  which  rendered  it  the  ripest  fruit 
of  the  human  mind  and  the  finest  outcome  of  the 
human  soul.  Nor  does  the  Bible  or  any  other  book 
of  Jewry  offer  the  truth  in  finite  or  absolute  form. 
The  whole  literature  of  the  Jew  simply  mirrors  the 
effort  of  the  Jewish  mind  and  soul  to  attain  an  ever 
higher  and  loftier  conception  of  God  and  man.  Only 
a  people  that  lives  forever,  passing  from  one  stage 
of  culture  to  the  other,  as  did  and  does  thejew,  can 
claim  to  be  the  God-chosen  prophet  and  expounder 
of  the  world's  highest  truth.  God  and  the  Jew  are 
inseparable.  Here  lies  the  peculiar  historical  mission 
of  the  Jew.  All  the  great  nations  that  accomplished 
some  great  thing  in  history  by  their  civilization, 
their  philosophical  or  scientific  systems  of  thought, 
rose  like  the  orb  of  day  until  they  reached  the  zenith 
of  their  power,  and  then  they  went  down  to  dis- 
appear forever  from  the  stage  of  life.  Their  fruit 
having  been  harvested  in  the  storehouse  of  literature 
or  art,  there  was  no  longer  any  cause  for  their  ex- 
istence. Not  so  Judaism.  Its  life  was  ever  renewed 
and  rejuvenated,  like  the  ever  waxing  and  waning 
moon,  with  which  it  is  likened  by  the  rabbis, 
because  its  spirit  is  perennial.  The  Jewish  people 
is  immortal,  because  it  is  ever  linked  with  the  God  of 
life.  The  culture  of  the  ages  ever  deepened  and 
elevated  its  religious  and  ethical  ideas  and  ideals. 
Surely  the  Greek,  too,  fondly  loved  the  truth  as  a 
precious  boon.  But  did  he  produce  men  filled  with 
such  a  passionate  love  of  truth  that  they  would  rather 


166  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


die  by  the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  than 
surrender  one  iota  of  it,  as  did  the  Jewish  people 
throughout  the  generations  to  this  very  day?  Science 
certainly  has  its  martyrs,  too.  But  can  they  compare 
with  the  heroic  martyrdom  of  the  millions  of  Jews 
who  mounted  the  funereal  pile  and  bent  their  neck 
under  the  executioner's  sword  with  the  song  of 
rejoicing  on  their  lips  at  such  sanctification  of  the 
name  of  their  God?  And  should  this  mission  of  the 
Jew  for  his  only  One  God  die  out  at  the  very  time  when 
the  world  needs  him  most,  nay,  when  the  world  is 
actually  waiting  for  him  to  cleanse  the  truth  of  Sinai 
from  the  alloy,  the  falsehood  with  which  it  has  been 
mixed  by  the  ruling  Church? 

It  was  precisely  the  missionary  spirit,  the  conviction 
of  Israel's  world-enlightening  and  world-conquering 
power  which  gave  rise  to  the  large  propaganda  work 
of  the  Jew  at  the  time  of  the  Hellenic  culture,  to  which 
alone  the  Church  and  the  Mosque  owe  their  origin. 
And  as  late  as  the  third  century  we  hear  one  of  the 
Talmudic  sages  utter  the  remarkable  sentence: 
"Israel  would  not  have  been  sent  into  the  diaspora 
but  for  the  purpose  of  making  ever  more  proselytes 
among  the  heathen  world."  Of  course,  the  medieval 
Ghetto  life  offered  little  chance  to  the  Jew  to  make 
his  sublime  truth  felt  among  the  surrounding  world, 
except  by  the  unparalleled  suffering  and  sacrifice 
he  underwent  on  its  behalf,  and  by  the  magnificent 
books  his  numerous  sages  sent  forth  to  illumine  the 
minds  also  of  a  few  monks  and  prelates  of  an  otherwise 
benighted  Christendom.  Only  under  the  benign 
sceptre  of  Moorish  and  Spanish  rulers  Jews  became 


ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD  167 

the  torchbearers  of  science  and  philosophy,  rousing 
Christian  Europe  from  her  medieval  slumber,  and 
preparing  the  world  for  the  era  of  the  Reformation. 
Small  as  their  number  was,  they  fulfilled  in  part 
the  Jews'  mission  of  truth. 

To-day  a  new  opportunity,  and  therewith  a  new 
task  has  come  to  the  Jew.  Behold,  the  thinking 
multitude  is  turning  away  more  and  more  from  the 
mythology  of  the  Christian  Trinity  belief  and  from 
all  the  dogmas  that  militate  against  reason  and 
common  sense,  craving  for  a  faith  which  is  in  accord 
with  reason  and  scientific  research.  Is  this  not  the 
time  for  the  Jew  to  exclaim  with  the  seer  of  yore: 
"Arise,  O  light,  and  shine,  and  let  the  glory  of  God 
illumine  anew  the  nations?"  There  is  a  saying  of 
the  rabbis  that  the  very  storm  which  cast  down  the 
idols  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  Babylonian  king, 
raised  the  dead  of  Israel's  exile  from  the  grave  to 
new  life.  So  did  the  very  decline  of  Ghetto  Judaism 
lift  the  spirit  of  our  great  Reform  pioneers  to  a  higher 
grasp  of  Israel's  world-mission,  and  they  beheld  in 
the  breaking  down  of  the  old  religious  life  of  the 
Jew  the  day-break  of  a  new  spiritual  scope,  the  dawn 
of  a  new  era  of  universalism  for  Jew  and  Judaism. 
Not  a  Jewish  nationality  re-established  in  Palestine, 
nor  a  revival  of  the  Hebraic  literature  such  as  the 
Zionists  plan,  can  purge  the  philosophy  and  theology 
of  the  Christian  world  of  its  errors  and  render  the 
monotheistic  faith  of  Israel  the  cementing  link  of 
mankind.  Only  in  living  and  working  in  and  with 
the  world  for  his  only  One  God  and  His  truth,  true 
and  loyal  to  his  sacred  heritage,  can  the  Jew  achieve 
his  mission  of  truth. 


168          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

And  there  is  another  mission  of  light  the  Jew  has 
to  work  for,  and  that  is  the  mission  for  justice  and 
righteousness.  Look  about  you  and  listen  to  the 
teaching  of  the  very  best  and  noblest  of  men  and 
women,  or  read  the  choicest  of  works  to  find  out 
what  is  the  soul  and  essence  of  their  ethics.  They 
will  with  one  voice  tell  you,  it  is  love.  This  is  the  New 
Testament  view  which  emanated  from  a  class  of 
men  that  lived  outside  of  the  world,  away  from  all 
political,  industrial  and  social  interests  of  life.  It 
is  still  preached  as  the  very  substance  of  morality 
by  men  like  Leo  Tolstoi  and  others.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  these  very  teachings,  far  from  having  built 
society  on  firm  and  safe  foundations,  have  sown 
hatred  instead  of  love  among  men,  because  they 
ignored  the  true  principle  of  all  social  and  individual 
ethics  upon  which  alone  character  as  well  as  society 
rests,  and  that  is  justice. 

Read  the  Torah  and  the  Talmud,  follow  the  battle 
the  prophets  waged  against  the  haughty  and  tyran- 
nical rich  in  defence  of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  what 
is  it  but  the  stern  insistence  upon  the  claim  of  right 
against  might?  "Justice  is  the  cause  of  God,  "says  the 
lawgiver,  and  behold  his  maxim,  as  the  rabbis  ex- 
press it:  "Let  the  mountain  be  pierced  and  shaken, 
if  but  the  right  prevail."  And  this  is  the  soul  of  the 
Jew.  He  hungers  and  yearns  for  justice.  From 
Abraham  to  the  author  of  Job,  from  Amos  and  Isaiah 
to  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Karl  Marx  there  goes  through 
the  Jewish  people  the  incessant  cry  for  righteousness 
and  justice  in  private  and  in  public  life.  The  whole 
religion  of  the  Jew  is  beautifully  summed  up  by 


ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD  169 


Matthew  Arnold  in  the  words:  "The  power,  not 
ourselves  that  maketh  for  righteousness."  What  is 
to-day  called  and  ever  more  emphatically  insisted 
on,  social  justice  and  helpful  scientific  beneficence, 
is  but  part  of  the  old  Jewish  Zedakah.  If  the  poor, 
the  laboring  class,  all  those  crushed  and  ground  by 
the  manipulations  of  the  greedy  men  of  wealth  say 
to-day:  "We  do  not  want  your  charity;  give  us  what 
is  due  to  us!  We  no  longer  want  the  crumbs  that 
fall  from  the  table  of  the  rich;  we  claim  our  share 
in  the  bounties  God  has  given  to  all  His  children" — 
they  simply  voice  the  teachings  of  Judaism  which 
claims  for  the  feeble  the  help  of  the  strong.  You 
hear  nowadays  so  much  of  altruism — that  is,  care 
for  others,  in  opposition  to  egoism  which  is  care  for 
one's  self.  Noble  as  the  virtue  is,  it  is  implied  in  the 
Golden  Rule  of  the  Mosaic  Law  pointed  out  as  life's 
leading  principle  by  Hilleland  the  Nazarene  teacher. 
But  it  does  by  no  means  cover  the  whole  of  ethics. 
For  after  all,  you  dare  not  neglect  yourself  either. 
In  order  to  be  of  service  to  others,  you  must  endeavor 
to  develop  all  the  powers  and  faculties  you  possess 
to  become  a  useful  member  of  society.  You  must 
through  struggle  and  trial  acquire  strength  of 
character,  self-reliance  and  independence  in  order 
to  be  able  to  help  others.  The  morality  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  fails  to  build  up  human  society 
such  as  it  is  constituted.  You  must  with  all  your 
power  resist  evil  and  assert  your  own  right  as  well 
as  that  of  others,  because  justice  is  the  foundation 
of  God's  throne,  and  without  it  the  whole  social 
structure  totters  and  falls.  Here,  then,  is  the  scope 


170  HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

and  mission  of  the  Jew.  Not  in  an  especial  State 
of  his  own,  but  in  the  very  midst  of  the  nations  among 
which  he  lives,  must  he,  as  he  did  under  far  less  pro- 
pitious conditions  in  former  ages,  battle  for  justice 
and  righteousness  as  the  true  basis  of  social  and 
private  ethics,  as  the  foundation  of  the  world. 

And  finally  there  is  the  third  mission  for  the  Jew 
to  accomplish,  while  living  and  working  as  fellow- 
citizen  of  the  members  of  the  various  States  and 
nations  of  the  world,  and  this  is  to  be  the  great 
factor  of  peace  which  is  the  crowning  cupola  of  all 
human  civilization.  Did  you  ever  ponder  over  the 
strange  and  puzzling  fact  that  the  lofty  teachings 
of  him  whose  birth  was,  according  to  the  Gospels, 
hailed  by  the  angels  of  God  as  the  harbinger  of 
"Glory  to  God  on  high,  and  Peace  and  Good  will 
among  men  on  earth,"  that  the  high  ideals  of  the 
New  Testament,  so  full  of  sympathy  with  suffering 
mankind,  should  have  brought  about  discord  and 
strife,  hatred,  bloodshed  and  war  rather  than  harmony 
and  peace  among  men  and  nations?  The  answer  is: 
The  words  ascribed  to  the  Nazarene  preacher: 
"My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world"  lent  the  Christian 
religion  that  character  of  other-worldliness  which 
gave  the  whole  life  of  man  a  false  meaning  and 
direction.  They  made  the  millions  of  adherents  of 
the  Church  look  with  contempt  upon  the  life  of  State 
and  society,  upon  industry,  culture  and  science,  and 
hunger  only  after  heavenly  salvation  and  bliss.  They 
handed  the  things  of  this  world  over  to  Satan,  and 
gave  the  whole  earthly  existence  of  man  an  entirely 
wrong  aspect.  They  created  a  two-fold  system  of 


ISRAEL'S  MISSION  IN  THE  WORLD  171 


ethics,  one  for  the  Church  and  one  for  the  world, 
one  for  Sunday  and  another  for  working  days,  one 
for  sacred  and  one  for  secular  things.  And  it  is  against 
this  view  of  religion  and  ethics  that  Judaism  must 
ever  protest  anew,  and  insist  on  the  holiness  of  the 
whole  life,  the  holiness  of  duty  everywhere  on  earth. 
Here  is  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  be  built  up  by  man, 
not  in  a  life  beyond.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
much  of  the  decline  of  sound  morality,  much  of  the 
depravity,  the  corruption,  the  crime  and  vice  that 
prevail  in  high  and  low  places  to-day,  that  the  very 
cruelty  and  brutality  that  has  brought  mankind 
from  civilization  to  a  state  of  barbarism  and  savagery, 
is  due  to  the  religious  crisis  through  which  we  are 
passing.  The  former  generations  were  more  or  less 
held  in  restraint  and  kept  on  the  path  of  virtue  and 
piety  by  fear  of  hell  and  hope  for  heaven's  bliss.  All 
these  threats  and  bribes  are  no  longer  of  any  avail, 
because  the  belief  in  a  world  of  punishment  and 
reward  beyond  the  grave  has  been  shaken.  Man 
needs  a  higher  and  deeper  ethical  motive,  and  only 
a  religion  which  makes  holiness  the  aim  of  the  soul, 
instead  of  salvation,  can  lift  humanity  to  higher  planes. 
Only  a  system  of  faith  which  teaches  man  to  do  the 
good,  because  it  is  good  and  godly,  and  shun  evil, 
because  it  is  evil  and  ungodly,  only  a  disinterested 
service  of  God  and  man,  emanating  from  the  principle 
of  life's  holiness,  will  lead  men  back  to  virtue,  to 
righteousness  and  goodness,  to  serene  peace  within 
and  without.  Yet  such  is  the  religion  and  ethics  of 
Judaism.  And  where  is  the  place  for  the  Jew  to  teach 
and  proclaim  it  as  the  true  basis  of  man's  brother- 


172 


hood?  Surely  not  in  the  confines  of  .the  little  terri- 
tory of  Palestine.  Wherever  the  Jew  lives,  he  must 
do  his  share  to  turn  the  earth  into  a  mountain  of 
God,  the  seat  of  righteousness  and  disinterested 
love.  And  at  no  time  did  he  have  such  opportunity 
to  again  mount  the  watch-tower  of  prophecy  and 
teach,  by  precept  and  practice,  the  ancient  truth  in 
the  language  of  modern  thought  as  to-day  and  in  this 
glorious  land  of  liberty,  if  he  himself  would  but  rise 
to  the  great  emergency,  and  from  a  selfish  materialist 
become  again  the  idealist  among  the  creeds  and 
classes  of  men. 

Surely  the  very  catastrophe  of  our  days  points 
for  him  who  can  see  beyond  the  surface  of  things, 
to  a  great  transformation  and  regeneration  of  man, 
to  the  need  of  higher  ideals.  And  who  can  tell  what 
great  things  God  has  planned  for  the  future!  Surely 
out  of  this  terrible  deluge  of  blood  and  woe  a  new 
earth  and  a  new  heaven  will  rise.  We  sow  in  tears 
and  shall  reap  in  joy.  Selfish  materialism  and  narrow 
nationalism  have  plunged  the  world  into  this  calam- 
itous war.  We  need  a  mighty  spiritual  force  to  lift 
us  to  true  idealism.  Will  the  Jew  in  this  free  and  God- 
blessed  soil  not  awaken  to  the  realization  of  his 
glorious  mission? 

To  America  the  Jews  all  over  the  world  look  for 
help  and  for  inspiration.  America's  Jews  shall  shape 
the  destiny  of  the  Jew  the  world  over.  So  let  us 
take  a  broad  outlook  upon  life  as  American  Jews 
and  American  patriots,  and  work  for  a  humanity 
re-established  and  reunited  upon  the  divine  principles 
of  truth,  justice  and  peace.  Amen. 


16. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF 
MODERN  RESEARCH.* 

RELIGION  is  not  the  same  as  theology.  Religion 
is  a  godly  life;  theology  is  a  great  battle-arena 
with  an  armory  full  of  weapons,  rude  and  polished, 
of  all  the  ages.  When  seeing  two  persons  engaged  in 
a  fierce  strife,  people  go  out  of  the  way.  So  they  do 
in  regard  to  theological  questions.  They  prefer 
neutral  grounds.  Still,  it  will  not  do  to  remain  un- 
concerned and  indifferent  when  the  object  of  the 
strife  is  of  vital  importance.  Every  person  that 
lays  claim  to  education,  still  more  the  Jew,  of  what- 
ever view  and  shade  of  opinion  he  be,  ought  to  have 
a  clear  conception  of:  What  the  Bible  is,  or  should 
be  in  the  light  of  modern  research. 

Of  all  the  nations  that  held  dominion  over  the 
earth,  of  all  the  conquerors  that  ruled  the  destinies 
of  man,  none  exerted  such  extensive  power  and  en- 
during influence  on  all  ages  as  did  the  Jewish  people 
through  the  Bible.  Before  its  irresistible  sway 
Bel  and  Osiris,  the  gods  of  Olympus  and  of  Asaheim, 
disappeared  to  let  Jahveh,  Israel's  Only  One, 
reign,  "from  the  rising  of  the  sun  unto  its  setting." 
The  memories  of  Hercules  and  Siegfried  faded  before 
the  lustre  of  Abraham  and  David.  And  what  do 


*Sunday   Lecture,   delivered   at   Temple   Beth-El,    New  York, 
November  15,  1887. 


174          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

the  literatures,  the  arts,  and  sciences  of  the  various 
nations  weigh  in  the  scale  against  the  Hebrew  Book? 
Forcing  its  way  into  every  household,  hut  or  palace, 
it  became  the  companion  of  the  forsaken,  the  com- 
forter of  the  distressed,  the  staff  of  the  feeble,  the 
inspiration  of  the  great,  and  the  illumination  of  the 
wise.  It  has  formed  our  morals,  built  our  States, 
framed  our  social  life,  and  shaped  our  thoughts. 
It  remoulded  humanity  amidst  the  downbreak  of 
ancient  civilization,  and  cradled  and  nursed  all  the 
modern  nations  of  Europe.  The  Bible,  wrested  from 
the  Church,  gave  Germany  its  intellectual,  England 
its  political  spirit  of  independence.  It  created  our 
American  Republic.  In  token  of  loyalty  to  our  com- 
monwealth, do  our  Presidents  press  their  lips  upon 
this  Book  when  assuming  their  high  office.  Nor  did 
the  great  leaders  of  modern  thought,  Lessing  and 
Goethe,  Carlyle  and  Huxley,  even  the  sceptic  Heine, 
hesitate,  in  various  strains  of  eulogy,  to  call  it  the 
great  and  unique  Book,  the  educator  of  humanity. 
You  may  as  well  attempt  to  drive  the  sun  out  of 
our  planet  as  divest  our  entire  culture  of  the  in- 
fluences of  this  book  from  Judea. 

And  need  I  dwell  particularly  on  what  the  Bible 
is  to  the  Jews?  It  was  our  ark  of  the  covenant  that 
led  us  through  wide  deserts  and  over  roaring  seas. 
It  was  our  banner  of  victory  that  decided  our  battles 
with  the  world,  our  fountain  of  living  waters  in  the 
dry  lands,  our  safeguard  and  elixir  of  life  that  rescued 
us  from  a  thousandfold  death,  the  source  of  truth 
from  which  all  the  intellects  of  the  ages  drew  inspira- 
tion and  light. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  RESEARCH          175 

Yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  we  see  this  Sacred 
Book,  the  friend,  the  guide,  the  comforter  of  mankind 
for  the  last  two  thousand  years,  sneered  at  by  our  so- 
called  enlightened  ones  to-day.  How  can  we  account 
for  this  strange  phenomenon? 

My  friends,  the  explanation  seems  easy  to  find. 
Love  often  turns  into  hatred  when  strained  beyond 
measure.  Both  love  and  hatred  are  blind,  the  one 
to  the  faults,  the  other  to  the  virtues  of  their  object. 
Therefore  disappointment  leads  from  one  extreme 
to  the  other.  This  is  exactly  what  happened  with  the 
Bible.  From  gratitude  for  what  it  offered,  people 
made  of  it  an  idol,  a  fetich.  While  regarding  it  as 
the  Book  of  God,  they  not  only  derived  from  it  their 
geology  and  astronomy  and  history,  for  many  cen- 
turies to  impede  the  progress  of  science,  but  they  read 
into  it  all  their  follies  and  falsehoods,  so  that  there 
was  hardly  a  crime  or  a  cruelty  which  was  not  sanc- 
tioned with  its  divine  authority.  The  burning  of 
heretics  and  witches  and  all  the  deviltry  perpetrated 
by  the  Church,  looked  to  the  Hebrew  Code  for 
justification;  just  as  did  slavery  and  polygamy  in  our 
day.  Child-like  fables  portraying  the  paradisiacal 
home  of  the  first  man,  and  Oriental  figures  of  speech 
picturing  the  coming  kingdom  of  peace  were  twisted 
into  ropes,  forged  into  shackles,  to  enslave  man  and 
enchain  his  reason  and  common-sense.  And  though 
the  Jew  was  spared  the  iron  strait-jacket  of  dogmatic 
belief,  though  his  reason  remained  unfettered,  in 
spite  of  the  weird  superstitions  which  from  all  lands 
and  ages  had  crept  into  his  mind,  the  law  which  he 
was  bound  to  obey  became  a  heavy  and  oppressive 


176          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

yoke,  nevertheless.  True,  it  shielded  and  guarded 
him  against  the  vices  and  passions  swaying  the  world 
around  him,  but  it  also  barred  him  out  of  any  friendly 
intercourse  with  humanity  at  large.  It  kept  him  in 
slavish  subjection  and  in  unwholesome  seclusion. 

At  last,  fretting  and  chafing  under  the  despotic 
dominion  of  this  Book,  man  with  the  torch  of  inquiry 
in  hand,  began  to  expose  its  errors,  its  contradic- 
tions, its  often  false  notions  and  assumptions  about 
God  and  nature.  Like  the  slave  rejoicing  at  the 
breaking  of  his  chains,  he  gloried  in  finding  the 
hitherto  infallible  Bible  faulty;  and  casting  it  down 
from  its  presumptuous  high  seat,  he  contrasted  it 
with  the  true  Book  of  Divine  Revelation,  with  God's 
handwriting  in  the  stars  and  the  rocks,  upon  the 
hearts  and  conscience  of  man.  Thus  the  spell  was 
broken,  and  the  Book  lay  in  fragments  before  him, 
like  the  two  tablets  of  the  law  at  the  feet  of  Moses. 
Condemn  not  iconoclasts  like  Diderot,  Voltaire, 
and  Thomas  Paine.  Though  they  abused  the  Bible, 
they  meant  well  with  man  and  his  divine  freedom. 
Their  ridicule  emancipated  the  race  from  the  thral- 
dom of  the  book.  Still,  neither  abuse  by  the  one 
nor  misuse  by  the  other,  led  to  a  true  appreciation, 
or  correct  view  of  the  Bible.  A  new  era  of  research 
dawned,  the  century  of  Darwin.  People  commenced 
to  re-read  the  world's  history.  The  Napoleonic 
expedition  to  Egypt  at  once  opened  the  horizon 
of  man.  Just  as  the  little  planet  earth  was  swung 
off  the  world's  center  by  the  discovery  of  Copernicus, 
so  were  the  Biblical  records  about  the  remote  past 
eclipsed  by  the  far  older  and  more  glorious  civilization 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  RESEARCH  177 

on  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates,  now  restored  to  light. 
Homer  was  shown  to  be  the  work,  not  of  one  man, 
but  of  ages.  The  older  history  of  Rome  and  Greece 
proved  to  be  a  series  of  legends.  Gradually  India, 
Persia,  and  China  yielded  up  their  long-hidden 
treasures  of  literature,  art,  and  religion,  and  then 
the  Bible  appeared  in  an  altogether  new  light.  The 
same  legends  about  creation,  paradise,  and  the  flood 
here  as  there;  the  same  rites  and  practices  here 
as  there;  the  same  holy  books  existing  here  as  there, 
and  the  same  modes  of  treating  and  using  them  also. 
And,  once  examined  like  any  other  human  writing, 
under  the  microscope  of  critical  analysis,  the  Bible 
turned  out  to  be  not  a  book  dictated  by  God  to 
Moses  and  David  and  Solomon  and  the  few  known 
prophets,  but  the  slow  and  steady  growth  of  a  nation's 
intellectual  life-work,  the  outcome  of  toiling  centuries 
groping  after  light  and  truth,  justice  and  comfort 
and  peace.  Instead  of  seeing  in  the  Pentateuch 
the  legacy  of  the  one  great  law-giver  Moses,  we  learn 
from  the  many  contradictory  views  and  discrepan- 
cies found  in  the  records  and  the  statutes,  that  many 
historians  and  priestly  legislators  must  have  been  at 
work,  augmenting  and  improving  the  written,  or 
unwritten,  laws  bearing  the  name  of  Moses,  before 
Ezra,  the  priestly  scribe,  could  present  it  to  the  new 
colony  of  Judea  as  the  foundation-stone  of  the 
Jewish  commonwealth.  Instead  of  taking  the 
Psalms  to  be  the  composition  of  the  great  warrior- 
king  David,  their  intrinsic  character  proved  that  the 
sacred  music  of  that  undying  hymn-book  of  the  na- 
tions could  not  have  struck  the  chord  of  the  Jewish 


178          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

heart,  ere  the  weepings  of  the  exiled  had  elicited 
from  David's  harp  the  elevating  strains  of  comfort. 
Likewise  was  the  name  of  King  Solomon,  renowned 
for  wisdom,  used  only  to  reflect  credit  on  the  literary 
productions  of  the  Jewish  schools  of  the  wise.  As 
chief  representatives,  however,  of  the  Jewish  genius, 
as  the  true  heralds  and  founders  of  the  Jewish  religion 
loomed  up,  not  Abraham  and  Moses,  around  whose 
brows  latter  ages  wove  the  aureola  of  glory  reflected 
from  the  full  mid-day  sun  that  had  risen  on  Zion, 
but  the  lofty  seers  of  Judea  who,  standing  forth  like 
high  mountain  peaks  which  herald  the  light,  were  the 
first,  with  tongues  of  fire  striking  the  ages,  to  pro- 
claim religion  to  be  good  conduct,  righteousness, 
and  mercy. 

Of  course,  this  view,  which  makes  of  the  Bible  a 
successive  composition  and  compilation  by  schools 
rather  than  one  single  or  several  inspired  books, 
contradicts  all  theories  of  the  past.  It  is  denounced 
by  the  orthodox  of  both  Church  and  Synagogue 
as  an  awful  heresy.  For  it  presents  the  truth  as 
growing  and  rising  from  earth-born  man  rather  than 
as  handed  down,  complete  and  perfect,  from  heaven. 
It  seems  to  do  away  with  Revelation  and  put  Evolu- 
tion in  its  stead. 

Of  course,  the  question  presses  for  an  answer: 
Can  Judaism  be  reconciled  with  this  view?  May 
any  one  holding  such  views — and  I  would  in  all  likeli- 
hood not  breathe  the  free  air  of  America  to-day ,  had 
I  not  many  years  ago  been  one  of  the  first  to  pub- 
licly voice  them — still  speak  in  the  name  and  with 
the  authority  of  Judaism? 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  RESEARCH          179 


I  shall  not  refer  here  to  the  great  master-minds 
and  highest  authorities  of  Judaism,  such  as  Mai- 
monides,  Ibn  Ezra,  and  Gersonides,  who  did  not 
believe  in  supernatural  revelation  either;  who  dis- 
carded the  miracle  stories  in  the  Bible,  being,  in 
fact,  the  first  critics  and  rationalists.  I  maintain 
that  only  this  liberal  view  of  the  Bible  offers  the 
broad  and  solid  foundation  to  that  religion  of  human- 
ity, of  which  Reform  Judaism  is  the  exponent. 

Standing  among  the  great  Alpine  mountains, 
you  can  hardly  recognize  the  difference  between 
mighty  giant-mountains,  like  Mont  Blanc  and  the 
Jungfrau,  and  the  others.  They  all  appear  alike, 
when  near  to  you.  But  glance  at  them  from  the  dis- 
tance, and  you  will  soon  find  the  one  over-towering 
all  the  rest.  Placed  among  the  various  Holy  Books, 
the  Bible  appears  to  resemble  now  one  and  then 
another.  But  look  at  it  through  the  vista  of  the  ages, 
and  you  will  see  how  they  are  all  dwarfed  by  its 
colossal  grandeur.  The  Bible  is  holy,  not  because 
it  is  inspired,  but  because,  and  in  so  far  as  it  does 
still,  inspire.  It  is  not  true,  because  God  has  spoken 
the  word,  but  because  in  the  truth,  the  comfort,  the 
hope,  the  final  victory  of  justice  which  it  holds  out, 
you  hear  God  speak  to  you  in  soul  stirring  strains. 
"Whatever  finds  me,"  says  Coleridge,  "bears  witness 
of  itself  that  it  has  proceeded  from  the  Holy  Spirit." 
No  book  in  the  world  enraptures  the  heart,  respond- 
ing to  the  innermost  needs  of  the  soul  so  much  as 
does — of  course,  only  in  certain  parts — this  vener- 
able Bible.  Compare  it  with  other  writings  and  see 
whether  it  did  not  give  virtue  a  finer  mould,  morality 


180          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


a  deeper  ring  and  resonance.  In  commanding  "Be 
holy  as  your  God  is  holy,"  it  placed  a  ladder  of  per- 
fection before  man,  bidding  him  rise  from  one  round 
to  another  and  higher  one,  until  the  uppermost  top 
will  be  reached,  on  which  the  highest  ideal  of  all 
that  is  good  and  true  is  seen.  What  matters  it  if 
all  the  symbolic  rites,  appearing  no  longer  as  avail- 
able helps  and  lifts,  are  cast  aside?  We  need  no  crutch- 
es as  soon  as  we  are  able  to  walk  upright  and  straight 
in  the  presence  of  the  Eternal.  What  of  it,  if  all  the 
Biblical  life-pictures  have  ceased  to  be  perfect 
models?  Standing  on  their  shoulders,  we  must  needs 
strive  for  higher  ideals.  And  if  all  the  Biblical  tales 
about  reward  and  punishment,  all  the  threats  and 
bribes,  have  lost  their  hold  upon  us,  the  consciousness 
of  the  Divine  within  us  ought  all  the  more  bring  us 
within  the  magnetic  sweep  of  divine  principles,  of 
eternal  truths.  Not  as  a  leaden  weight  to  keep  us 
down,  but  as  a  wing  with  which  to  soar  up,  not  as 
a  bar  to  shut  man  out  of  heaven,  but  as  a  gate  to 
open  heaven's  freedom  and  bliss  for  him,  do  we  want 
to  use  the  Bible.  It  must  be  read  in  the  light  of  its 
own  history.  Its  characters,  its  laws,  its  legends, 
its  poetry  and  history  must  be  judged  by  the  standard 
of  their  age,  not  by  ours,  which,  owing  to  the  Bible's 
influence,  is  a  far  higher  one.  The  Bible  is  not  a 
book  understood  by  the  average  reader  without  the 
help  of  students  or  commentaries.  It  must  be  used 
with  wise  discretion. 

It  is  no  work  written  or  dictated  by  God.  Were 
it  such  a  one,  we  could  not  accept  it  as  holy  with  its 
often  crude  notions  and  harsh  sentiments  of  hatred, 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  RESEARCH  181 

revenge,  and  passion,  which  are  anything  but  divine. 
Quite  different  it  is,  if,  taking  the  spirit  instead  of 
the  letter,  we  see  through  its  medium  the  heroes  of 
yore,  an  Abraham,  a  Moses,  and  an  Isaiah,  wrestling 
like  Jacob  with  God  all  through  the  night,  until  a 
new  day  dawns  upon  their  minds ;  if  we  behold  those 
seers  of  old  climbing  up  the  mount  of  vision,  until 
they  have  reached  the  sun-lit  summit  of  a  lofty 
religious  perception.  Just  as  before  the  growing 
intellect  of  the  child,  sun,  sky,  and  ocean  expand,  so 
we  find  the  idea  of  God  growing  and  expanding,  until 
His  glory  surpasses  the  heavens. 

Yes,  God  did  descend  to  the  hill-top  of  Sinai 
wrapped  in  smoke  and  fire,  yea,  betraying  human 
passion  and  frailty,  but  only  to  lift  man  up  to  ever 
higher  regions  of  thought,  His  all-consuming  fire, 
brightening  into  a  sun  of  righteousness,  before  which 
wickedness  vanishes  like  mist,  and  His  wrathful 
frown  changing  into  the  serene  smile  of  paternal 
love  and  compassion.  The  very  greatness  of  the  Bible 
consists  in  that  it  does  not  offer  a  mere  philosophical 
God,  but  a  God  living  within  man  and  ever  rising 
before  him.  Its  gold  is  not  coined  into  creeds,  but 
is  still,  with  all  the  dross  and  the  quartz,  imbedded 
in  the  mine;  its  water  of  life  not  presented  in  pitchers 
and  cups,  but  pouring  forth  from  the  perennial 
fountains  of  the  heart.  The  forms  of  worship  pre- 
scribed, the  laws  given  there,  are  not  the  same 
throughout  the  Book;  they  are  changing,  shifting, 
and  constantly  improving,  thus  showing  that  all 
rites  and  ceremonies  must  change;  that  just  as  nature 
renews  its  garb  from  year  to  year,  so  must  religion, 


182          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


in  order  to  remain  vigorous  and  full  of  vitality,  be 
in  a  constant  state  of  progress  and  evolution. 

And  finally,  while  all  other  books  and  literatures 
represent  but  parts  and  fragments  of  man's  history,  the 
Bible  opens  before  us  the  great  panorama  of  universal 
history.  Watching  the  waves  and  tides  of  the  sea, 
we  are  apt  to  behold  in  them  a  mere  play  of  chance, 
until  we  learn  the  law  which  bids  the  moon  sway  the 
tidal  march  of  the  rolling  ocean  with  its  constant 
ebb  and  flow.  The  existence  of  this  law  in  history 
which  makes  the  tidal  waves  of  God's  justice  and  love 
sweep  over  individuals  and  nations  in  never-faltering 
might,  was  first  proclaimed  by  the  Hebrew  seers. 
They  first  pointed  to  those  slowly  but  steadily  work- 
ing mills  of  God,  which  separate  the  chaff  from  the 
wheat.  They  disclosed  the  magnificent  chariot  of 
God  securing  victory  to  all  that  is  good  and  true, 
and  crushing  under  its  wheels  all  that  is  hollow  and 
worthless.  Thus  history  became  the  great  refiner 
and  educator  of  the  race,  culminating  in  the  lofty 
Messianic  goal,  in  the  great  consummation  of  hu- 
manity, when  all  lands  and  streams  of  culture  will 
offer  their  gift  upon  the  altar  of  the  Most  High, 
whose  truth  and  love  are  mirrored  everywhere,  as  the 
sun  is  in  the  ocean  and  the  dew-drop. 

What  the  Darwins  of  Chaldea  four  thousand 
years  ago  discovered  while  gazing  upon  nature's 
work,  says  Renan,  the  Jewish  sages  have  embodied 
in  the  first  chapters  of  the  Bible.  And  will  not  the 
disclosures  of  those  geniuses  who,  after  another  four 
thousand  years,  may  illumine  mankind,  still  harmonize 
with  the  bright  hopes  and  great  truths  offered  by  the 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  RESEARCH  183 

Bible?  Two  great  nations  have  reared  the  pillars  of 
civilization :  the  Greeks  with  their  Midas-hand  turned 
the  bequest  of  Chaldea  and  Phenicia  into  the  gold 
of  art  and  science;  the  Jews,  with  the  flame  of  their 
divine  inspiration,  moulded  the  past  into  an  ideal 
of  holiness  and  perfection.  Ought  we  not,  as  the 
guardians  of  the  Book,  preserve  and  cultivate  the 
spirit  which  has  kept  and  enlivened  the  Bible,  the 
spirit  of  freedom,  of  progress,  and  of  enlightenment? 
And  if  the  Bible  of  Humanity  in  the  future  will  be 
large  enough  to  have  room  for  all  that  is  inspiring 
and  ennobling,  cheering  and  elevating  in  all  the 
literatures  and  arts  of  the  nations,  men  will  yet  with 
our  Whittier  sing: 

We  search  the  world  for  truth;  we  cull 
The  good,  the  pure,  the  beautiful 
From  graven  stone,  and  written  scroll, 
From  the  old  flower-field  of  the  soul; 
And  weary  seekers  of  the  best, 
We  come  back  laden  to  our  quest, 
To  find  that  all  the  sages  said 
Is  in  the  Book  our  mothers  read. 


17 
THE  WANDERING  JEW.* 

IF  WE  believe  the  old  medieval  legend,  the  Wander- 
ing Jew  is  a  luckless  fugitive,  with  a  haggard, 
weather-beaten  face,  a  tall,  emaciated  figure,  and 
dishevelled  hair,  clothed  in  rags,  bare-footed,  having 
nothing  but  his  knotty  staff  to  lean  on,  the  very 
image  of  misery  and  despondency.  He  has  long 
ceased  smiling.  He  can  only  sigh.  He  has  a  strange 
story  to  tell  of  human  folly  and  cruelty;  for  he  has 
traversed  the  wide  globe,  seen  every  land  and  chron- 
icled the  events  of  each  age.  He  witnessed  the  down- 
fall of  Jerusalem,  the  ruin  of  the  Roman  empire. 
He  beheld  the  Church  in  her  rise  and  her  decline; 
Islamism  in  its  zenith  and  its  defeat.  He  saw  genera- 
tions as  they  came  and  went,  civilizations  as  they 
sprang  up  and  vanished,  kingdoms  and  empires  as 
they  appeared  and  disappeared.  He  stood  at  the 
cradle  of  so  many  nations  only  to  shed  a  tear  over 
their  graves.  He  saw  all  enter  life  and  die;  do  their 
work  and  then  go  to  their  rest.  He  alone  is  not  per- 
mitted to  find  a  respite.  To  wander  from  place  to 
place,  and  from  one  country  to  another,  without  rest 
for  his  weary  foot,  is  his  doom.  And  why?  Poor 
man!  He  does  not  seem  to  remember  that  event 
quite  distinctly.  When  seen  by  an  Armenian  bishop 

*Sunday  Discourse,  delivered  at  Temple  Beth  El,  New  York, 
April  1,  1888. 


186          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


in  the  East  in  the  beginning  of  the  XIII.  century, 
he  said  that  his  name  was  Cartaphilus  ("the  much- 
beloved"),  and  having  been  doorkeeper  of  Pontius 
Pilate,  he  struck  Jesus  on  the  neck  as  he  passed  on 
to  the  cross,  telling  him  to  go  quicker,  whereupon 
Jesus  cursed  him,  saying:  "I  shall  go,  but  thou  shalt 
remain  waiting  till  I  come  back."  But,  three  hundred 
years  later,  when  first  sighted  in  European  countries, 
in  Hamburg,  London,  and  elsewhere,  he  gave  his  name 
as  Ahasuerus,  and  his  story  ran  differently.  A  shoe- 
maker by  profession,  he  stood  at  the  doorway  when 
Jesus,  with  the  heavy  cross  on  his  shoulder,  wanted 
to  rest  in  front  of  his  house,  and  he  pushed  him  for- 
ward, ordering  him  to  hasten  on;  whereupon  Jesus 
looked  sternly  at  him,  saying:  "I  shall  stand  here 
and  rest,  but  thou  shalt  move  on  forever  until  dooms- 
day." At  another  time  he  appeared  under  still 
another  name.  But  there  is  no  need  of  dwelling  longer 
on  the  mere  frame  of  the  legend.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
the  Wandering  Jew  became  one  of  the  most  popular 
figures  of  European  folk-lore.  Inquiries  tell  us  that 
the  old  Teutonic  god  of  storm  and  wind,  surviving 
under  the  name  of  the  Wild  Huntsman,  has  been 
frequently  identified  with  our  hero.  Strange  indeed, 
that  in  hunting  the  Jew,  the  German  hunted  his  old 
god,  who  had  to  die  in  order  to  lend  new  force  to 
the  never-dying  Jew.  But  the  source  of  the  legend 
can  be  traced  still  farther  east.  The  Arabian  Jews 
in  Mohammed's  time  spoke  of  a  cursed  Samaritan 
who  was  doomed  to  roam  about  like  a  beast  of  the 
forest,  without  rest,  because  he  formed  the  golden 
calf  for  Aaron.  Many  such  Cain-like  fugitives 


THE  WANDERING  JEW  187 


exist  in  Eastern  folk-lore.  Yet,  perhaps,  the  original 
type  of  the  Wandering  Jew  was  not  an  accursed  man, 
but  the  great  world-traverser  Elijah,  the  prophet 
who  was  spared  death  in  order  to  be  the  forerunner 
of  the  expected  Messiah.  He,  according  to  Jewish 
belief,  still  appears  from  time  to  time  on  earth  in 
the  shape  of  an  old  man  deeply  interested  in  the 
progress  of  humanity.  He  lives  under  the  name  of 
the  deathless  Chidr  among  the  Moslems,  and  as 
St.  John  "the  Beloved  One"  among  Christians  in 
the  East. 

But  in  the  Christian  mind  the  restless  wanderer 
became  the  personification  of  the  Jewish  race.  The 
strange  fate  of  that  wondrous  people,  who,  defying 
fire  and  sword,  and  braving  all  the  storms  and 
furies  of  the  people's  passion,  driven  from  land  to 
land,  weighed  down  by  the  curse  of  the  nations,  still 
continued  to  march  on  with  unabated  vigor,  an 
object  of  pity,  yet  unyielding,  uncompromising, 
unconquerable  in  its  determination  to  kneel  before 
no  savior  but  its  Only  One  God,  could  not  but  puzzle 
and  perplex  Christianity.  For  what  will  become  of 
the  promised  second  coming  of  its  Messiah,  as  long 
as  the  Jews  refuse  to  recognize  him  as  king?  This 
fact  alone  explains  why  so  cruel  an  injustice,  as  to 
have  him  inflict  so  terrible  a  curse  upon  a  man  for 
so  slight  an  offense,  was  ascribed  to  the  otherwise 
tender-hearted  teacher  of  Nazareth.  Christ  and  the 
Wandering  Jew,  however,  stand  here  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  two  creeds  in  their  implacable  hos- 
tility. But,  thank  God,  what  was  intended  to  be  a 
caricature  of  the  Jew,  is  to-day  his  glorification.  I 


188          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


trust,  Christianity  itself  is  to-day  ashamed  of  the 
awful  curse  flung  at  the  martyr-race,  and  no  longer 
extols  its  crucified  God  by  crucifying  the  Jews. 
Likewise  is  the  grotesque  figure  of  the  Wandering 
Jew,  through  the  magic  spell  of  the  modern  genius 
of  poetry,  through  Goethe  and  Shelley,  transformed 
into  a  grand  Prometheus-like  type  of  wandering  and 
struggling  humanity.  All  the  more  should  we  feel 
induced  to  read  the  history  of  the  past  in  the  light 
of  the  day,  not  as  Longfellow,  when  speaking  of 
the  Jews,  says: 

"Spelling  it  backward  like  a  Hebrew  book, 
Till  life  became  a  Legend  of  the  Dead," 

but  rather  in  a  sense  which  imbues  the  Legend  of  the 
Dead  with  the  spirit  of  life. 

Yes,  the  Jew  has  all  along  been  an  unsteady  wan- 
derer on  earth,  but  not  like  Cain  with  the  mark  of 
bloody  guilt  on  his  forehead,  but  like  Abraham,  his 
ancestor,  commissioned  by  God  to  bestow  blessing, 
both  materially  and  spiritually,  upon  all  families 
of  man.  True  enough,  there  is  something  about  the 
history  of  the  Jewish  people  which  seems  to  place 
them  outside  of  the  law  governing  the  life  of  others. 
Their  endurance  and  elasticity,  their  powers  of 
resistance  and  tenacity  appear  to  be  without  parallel. 
.Greek  mythology  speaks  of  a  hero  for  whom  his 
mother  obtained  the  boon  of  immortal  life,  but, 
having  forgotten  to  pray  also  for  his  immortal  yputh, 
she  saw  him  shrivel  and  dwindle  into  a  size  ',vhich 
made  his  sight  more  repulsive  than  death.  For 
without  continual  regeneration,  everlasting  life  be- 
comes a  burden  and  a  curse.  This  is  not  the  case 


THE  WANDERING  JEW  189 


with  the  Jew.  He  was  privileged  to  drink  ever  anew 
from  the  fountain  of  youth.  His  history  is  a  per- 
petual rejuvenation,  an  oft-repeated,  phoenix-like 
resurrection  from  the  grave.  This  is  due  to  his  two- 
fold nature.  Like  man  among  the  animated  beings, 
he  among  the  nations  leads  a  double  life,  animal  and 
divine,  combining  two  forces,  a  material  and  a 
spiritual,  a  national  and  a  cosmopolitan  idea  of  man. 
Israel  has  often  been  likened  to  the  stars,  also  wander- 
ers along  the  expanse  of  heaven.  Some  of  them  lead, 
so  to  say,  a  vagabond  life,  and  by  their  eccentric  ways 
appear  like  disturbers  of  the  order  of  the  solar  system. 
Such  are  the  comets  dreaded  by  the  people  and  hardly 
reckoned  among  the  stars.  Yet  they,  too,  wheel 
around  the  same  luminous  center  in  their  solitary 
track  along  the  sky.  Thus  does  "the  star  of  Jacob," 
"in  its  solitude  not  counted  among  the  nations," 
swing  around  the  bright  orb  of  humanity  while  pur- 
suing a  different  course  from  the  others.  The  Jew's 
history  is  the  world's  history  in  miniature.  All 
streams  of  culture  meet  on  his  path.  His  treasury 
of  knowledge  is  full  of  the  best  wisdom  of  all  the 
nations.  Like  the  bee,  he  alone  has  been  busy  in 
gathering  honey  from  every  flower  in  the  garden 
of  culture. 

Watch  his  childhood.  See  how  he  listened  to  the 
rather  dull  fables  of  old  Chaldea,  soon  to  coin  them 
into  grand  moral  truths  about  the  world's  beginnings. 
He  did  not  care  to  have  Egypt's  hieroglyphics  read 
and  her  sphinxes'  riddles  solved,  but,  pervaded  by 
sound  reason  and  common  sense,  he  made  his  God  on 
Sinai  hurl  forth  His  most  terrific  thunders  against 


190          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


her  caste  despotism,  and  flash  forth  His  lightnings 
against  her  worship  of  brutes  and  her  oppression 
of  man.  He  craved  for  liberty  as  man's  highest 
boon.  He  went  forth  to  see  humanity  free  and  simple. 
He  spent  his  youth  in  Palestine.  There  he  became 
an  apprentice  to  Phoenician  art  and  culture.  But 
he  was  not  granted  a  long  career  as  a  peaceful  farmer. 
His  land  was  too  near  the  great  theater  of  war  be- 
tween the  world's  mighty  empires;  he  was  dragged 
into  the  bloody  strife,  his  land  was  seized  as  spoil. 
Afl  the  louder  he  raised  his  voice  against  injustice 
and  tyranny.  PointlJ^to  a  higher  rule  of  righteous- 
ness, he  ascended  the  world's  pulpit  to  preach  the 
judgment  day  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  in  whose  hands 
Assyria,  Babylon,  and  Egypt  are  but  rods  of  chas- 
tisement, and  threshing-flails  to  separate  the  chaff 
from  the  wheat.  What  mattered  it  to  him  if  the 
coming  storm,  destined  to  smite  all  the  nations  of 
antiquity,  should  also  strike  his  tree,  if  but  the  root 
and  a  single  branch  remain  to  witness  that  God 
ruleth? 

The  Babylonian  exile  became  his  high-school 
of  trials.  There  he  prepared  himself  for  his  grand, 
historical  task.  If  he  lost  his  land,  he  learned  to 
render  the  wide  world  his  home.  His  Hebrew  nation- 
ality found  an  early  grave,  but  the  cosmopolitan 
Jew  was  cradled  and  nursed.  Kaulbach,  in  his  famous 
painting  "The  Destruction  of  Jerusalem,"  represents 
the  "Wandering  Jew"  as  starting  forth  from  the  ruins 
a  shattered  man  overwhelmed  with  anguish,  deprived 
of  hope,  with  a  lacerated  heart,  down-cast  with  a 
sorrow  for  which  there  is  no  relief,  while  in  the  back- 


THE  WANDERING  JEW  191 


ground  of  that  picture  of  woe  and  desolation  Chris- 
tianity enters  in  the  white  garb  of  innocence  with 
its  flag  unfurled,  shouting  victory  and  triumph. 
This  is  the  Christian  construction  of  history,  but 
the  facts  contradict  it.  Six  centuries  before  the  fall 
of  the  second  temple,  the  Jew  had  started  upon  his 
journey  throughout  the  lands.  He  had  served  in  the 
highest  positions  at  Babylonian,  Persian,  and  Egyp- 
tian courts,  like  Joseph  of  yore.  He  had  won  laurels 
in  the  battle-fields,  while  fighting  under  Alexander 
the  Great  and  under  the  Ptolemies;  he  had  tilted 
their  soil  and  extended  their  ^(Jhmerce  and  industry. 
The  whole  African  and  Asiatic  coast  of  the  Medi- 
terranean sea  was  dotted  with  Jewish  settlements, 
from  all  of  which  the  sublime  truths  of  a  common 
father  and  a  common  brotherhood  of  man  were  issued 
forth,  long  before  Christianity  had  appeared  on  the 
stage.  Kingdoms  in  the  far  East  and  in  the  distant 
South  had  been  converted  to  Judaism,  scattering 
the  seeds  which  afterwards  yielded  such  unexpected 
harvests  to  both  the  Church  and  the  Mosque.  The 
Wandering  Jew  had  followed  in  the  wake  of  King 
Cyrus  of  Persia,  and  of  Alexander  the  Macedonian 
conqueror,  to  blend  Occidental  and  Oriental  ideas 
and  habits  of  life.  Jewish  intellects  built  the  bridge 
between  Hellenic  wisdom  and  Oriental  thought 
through  which  the  entire  medieval  world  had  to  pass. 
And  after  the  Roman  soldier  had  thrown  the  fire- 
brand into  the  Jewish  temple,  could  not  the  Wandering 
Jew  point  to  his  house  of  learning  and  with  the 
Greek  sage  say :  "I  carry  all  my  possessions  with  me?" 
He  possessed  mankind's  holiest  treasure,  the  Book 


192          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

of  Books,  translated  into  every  tongue,  and  brightened 
up  by  the  gems  of  the  best  philosophies  of  the  nations. 
Look  to  Persia,  Arabia,  and  Asia  Minor.  Have  those 
princes  and  knights,  those  grandees  and  courtiers, 
those  astronomers  and  physicians,  those  lofty  poets 
and  wealthy  rulers  of  the  money-mart  the  look  of 
despair  and  cowardice  about  them?  And  then 
follow  the  march  of  civilization  westward  under  the 
sway  of  Islamism,  and  see  who  is  in  the  van.  Who 
does,  like  Joseph  did  in  Egypt,  store  up,  in  the  times 
of  plenty,  the  treasures  of  philosophy,  science,  and 
popular  wisdom  to  distribute  them  to  the  Christian 
nations  in  the  days  of  spiritual  famine?  Whose 
counsel  saves  the  European  world  from  lapsing  into 
utter  barbarism?  In  the  entire  commercial,  literary 
and  political  intercourse  of  nations,  the  Wandering 
Jew  was  the  mediator,  the  pioneer  of  civilization. 
When  Columbus  or  Vasco  da  Gama  went  forth  in 
search  of  new  lands  and  continents,  or  when  Kepler 
looked  out  for  new  worlds  on  the  firmament,  they 
were  assisted  by  the  Wandering  Jew.  And  again 
when  Italy  gave  rise  to  the  Renaissance,  and 
Germany  to  the  Reformation,  he  stood  there  with  the 
torch  of  enlightenment  to  kindle  research  and  nurture 
the  spirit  of  awakening  humanity. 

Only  when  for  most  of  the  modern  nations  the 
dark  night  of  mediaevalism  seemed  to  be  well-nigh 
past  and  a  new  day  was  first  heralded  in  Italy  and 
then  in  Holland,  only  for  the  last  three  or  four 
hundred  years,  the  Wandering  Jew  fell  asleep,  being 
fatigued  and  exhausted  from  his  long,  thorny  path. 
Into  his  gloomy  Ghetto  the  new  day  was  slow  to 


THE  WANDERING  JEW  193 

enter.  But  he  did  not  sleep  long.  As  soon  as  the  new 
morn  was  announced  by  Mendelssohn  and  Lessing, 
at  the  trumpet  blasts  of  liberty  proclaimed  in  France 
and  America,  he  rose  with  delight  to  drink  in  the  light 
of  freedom  and  hail  the  blessings  of  progress.  See 
him  now  standing  in  the  front  ranks  among  the 
champions  of  liberty  against  oppression,  of  justice 
against  intolerance,  of  cosmopolitan  love  and  charity 
against  narrow  seclusiveness.  In  every  land  and 
zone  you  find  him  to-day  holding  the  highest  posts 
of  honor  in  law  and  politics,  reflecting  glory  upon  his 
country  and  profession  in  every  field  of  honorable 
labor.  He  challenges  his  fellow-citizens  by  his  social 
virtues  no  less  than  by  his  enterprise  and  success. 
Thank  God,  he  is  no  longer  hunted,  no  longer  thecurse- 
laden  fugitive.  He  is  recognized  as  a  man  and  as  a 
citizen.  He  has  found  rest,  a  sweet  home  of  liberty, 
and  nowhere  so  as  in  our  blessed  land.  Well,  then, 
has  he  reached  his  goal?  Why  does  he  not  then  cast 
off  the  Jewish  cloak,  his  storm-beaten  mantle,  and 
amalgamate  with  the  nations  around  him?  Why 
not  drop  his  peculiarities,  the  name  of  Jew,  and 
become  citizen  of  the  wide  world? 

My  friends!  If  the  Wandering  Jew  has  come  to 
stay,  humanity  has  not.  Mankind  is  wandering  and 
moving  onward  and  forward  from  station  to  station, 
and  the  Jew,  the  suffering  Messiah  of  former  ages, 
must  still  lead  to  see  his  humanity's  cause  triumph. 
For  the  humanity  we  look  for  is  not  a  mere  visionary 
cosmopolitism,  a  religion  without  God,  a  morality 
without  religion,  but  the  great  harvest  of  human 
history,  the  consummate  growth  of  all  the  divine 


194          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

seeds  of  the  good,  the  true  and  the  beautiful,  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth  realized.  History  will 
yet  have  many  ascents  and  descents  of  man,  many 
empires  and  systems  of  religion  and  philosophy 
rising  and  setting  like  the  sun,  while  Judaism  will 
wax  and  wane  with  ever  renewed  vigor  like  the  moon. 
No.  The  Wandering  Jew  dares  not  drop  his  priestly 
robe  nor  sell  his  birth-right  for  a  pottage  of  lentils. 
His  master  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  age,  but  the  ever- 
lasting Spirit  of  all  the  Ages.  His  fount  of  youth  is 
mankind's  fountain  of  life.  The  true  leader  must  be 
the  first  in  storming  the  heights,  but  the  last  in 
leaving  the  battle-field.  The  world's  battles  for  the 
right  and  the  true  have  not  been  fought  and  decided 
as  yet.  Mankind  still  needs  our  service;  God  still 
counts  upon  Abraham's  seed.  Yes,  Elijah  is  the 
prototype  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  that  is,  as  herald 
of  the  great  Messianic  time.  For  our  Messiah  has 
not  come,  but  is  carried  along  in  the  arms  of  centuries 
by  all  the  advancing  arts,  sciences  and  ideals  of  man. 
Genius  of  mankind  is  his  name.  Peace  is  his  scepter, 
righteousness  his  shield,  truth  his  chariot  and  his 
golden  diadem,  reflecting  the  majesty  of  God  on  high, 
is  love.  Yet,  as  long  as  God  is  not  enthroned  as 
Father  of  Righteousness  and  Love  in  the  hearts  of 
all  nations  and  sects,  so  long  thy  task,  O  Wandering 
Jew,  is  not  fulfilled.  Falter  not.  With  the  ark  of 
covenant  upon  thy  shoulders,  thou  art  to  lead  man- 
kind to  Zion's  heights,  and,  like  the  priests  on  Jor- 
dan's shore,  thou  must  wait  till  the  last  of  thy  brethren 
has  entered  the  land  of  promise,  of  a  humanity 
united  by  thy  God  of  truth,  of  justice  and  of  peace. 
Amen. 


18. 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM.* 

AS   REPRESENTED   BY   THE   UNION   OF   AMERICAN 

HEBREW  CONGREGATIONS  AND  THE  HEBREW 

UNION  COLLEGE. 

"  Nedibe  Am  Neesafu  Am  Elohe  Abraham — The  princes  of 
the  people  are  gathered  together,  the  representatives  of  the 
people  of  the  God  of  Abraham." 

IT  IS  a  great  privilege  to  address  this  distinguished 
assembly,  representing  the  great  body  of  pro- 
gressive American  Israel  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  this  glorious  land,  in  this  metropolis 
which  holds  in  its  midst  a  larger  Jewish  population 
than  was  held  in  the  holy  city  of  Jerusalem  or  in 
Alexandria  in  their  most  prosperous  days,  and  speak 
on  what  must  be  of  the  highest  and  deepest  concern 
to  all  of  us,  on  American  Judaism  as  it  is  represented 
by  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew  Congregations, 
and  as>ft  is  expounded  and  held  up  as  a  banner  of 
light  and  victory  by  the  Hebrew  Union  College.  Oh, 
when  I  think  of  what  Judaism  meant  to  our  fathers 
when,  within  the  gloomy  Ghetto  walls,  amidst 
unparalleled  woe  and  in  the  face  of  crudest  perse- 
cution by  fanatics  and  death-dealing  mobs,  they  went 

'Address  before  the  Council  of  the  Union  of  American  Hebrew 
Congregations,  Jan.  18,  1911. 


196          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

each  morning  to  the  synagogue  to  proudly  proclaim 
the  unity  of  God  in  the  Sh'ma  Yisrael,  and  declare 
their  readiness  to  offer  their  life  and  all  they  had  for 
the  glorification  of  the  Most  High,  while  reciting 
the  benediction,  "Blessed  be  the  Lord,  whose  name 
is  to  be  sanctified  before  the  great  world;"  and  when 
I  compare  therewith  what  Judaism  means  to  us,  who 
live  in  amity  and  concord  with  all  our  fellow-citizens 
round  about,  enjoying  the  same  rights  and  privileges, 
and  finding  all  avenues  and  opportunities  to  success 
and  station,  to  power,  honor  and  influence  open  to 
each  as  the  peer  and  equal  of  all,  and  yet  stand  up 
with  heart  and  soul,  with  might  and  main,  with  burn- 
ing zeal  and  glowing  enthusiasm  for  the  ancient 
faith,  to  the  potency  and  vitality  of  which  our 
magnificent  temples  and  our  glorious  institutions  of 
philanthropy  and  education  all  over  the  country 
give  loud  and  unequivocal  testimony;  and  when  I 
further  consider  what  is  being  done  by  American 
Israel  for  the  suffering  and  struggling,  the  storm- 
tossed  and  fury-lashed  Jew  of  other  lands  and  climes, 
then  American  Judaism,  the  soul  and  spiritual 
essence  of  American  Jewry,  appears  to  me  to  be  a 
theme  so  grand  and  rich,  so  bright  in  outlook,  and  so 
suggestive  of  hope  and  unlimited  potentialities,  that 
the  pen  quivers  and  the  tongue  falters  in  the  endeavor 
to  do  it  justice. 

Ever  since  I  was  privileged  to  imbibe  the  invigor- 
ating air  of  this  God-blessed  land  of  liberty,  Amer- 
ican Israel  appeared  to  me  as  a  new  type  of  Joseph, 
"the  prince  among  his  brethren,"  whom  Divine 
Providence  entrusted  with  the  mission  of  not  merely 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  197 

preserving  the  lives  of  the  tens  of  thousands  who 
come  to  seek  bread  and  shelter  under  the  starry 
banner,  but  of  reviving  the  spirit  of  God's  chosen 
people,  and  of  endowing  them  with  new  hope  and 
a  wider  outlook,  with  a  deeper  comprehension  of 
their  prophetic  vision  and  their  world-duty.  I  do 
not  wonder  at  the  story  that  the  simple  sons  of  Jacob, 
the  shepherd  sheikh  of  Canaan,  were  so  awe-struck 
at  the  sight  of  the  gigantic  palaces  and  the  colossal 
temples  and  obelisks  in  the  strange  wonderland  of 
Egypt  that  they  failed  to  recognize  their  brother 
Joseph  in  his  royal  garb  and  glory  who  had  become 
a  thorough  Egyptian  in  speech  and  manner,  and 
that  they  would  not  trust  him,  even  after  he  had  as- 
sured them  of  his  love  and  loyalty  as  brother  and 
kinsman.  Neither  do  I  wonder  if  our  Russian  or 
Roumanian  brethren,  brought  up  under  the  humil- 
iating conditions  and  widely  different  religious  views 
and  influences  of  their  benighted  country,  harbor  a 
certain  mistrust  of  us,  when  they  see  our  majestic 
houses  of  worship  and  our  educational  and  philan- 
thropic structures  reared  after,  and  maintained  by 
altogether  different  methods.  In  their  bewilderment 
they  fail  to  recognize  that  in  blending  Americanism 
with  Judaism  we  have,  like  Joseph  of  yore,  stored 
up  the  treasures  of  life  for  their  children  as  well  as 
for  ours;  that  in  changing  or  modifying  the  form,  we 
have  been  preserving  and  guarding  the  faith  far  better 
than  did  our  brethren  in  Europe,  who  are  being 
confronted  with  the  peril  of  spiritual  starvation, 
and  whose  children  sell  their  Jewish  birthright  by 
the  thousands  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  for  political  or 


198          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

social  recognition  and  promotion.  No,  we  who  rally 
under  the  banner  of  progressive  American  Judaism  are 
not  behind  our  conservative  brethren  in  loyalty  to, 
and  in  love  for,  our  sacred  heritage.  In  fact,  love 
for  the  truth,  for  which  our  fathers  died,  bade  our 
Reform  pioneers  liberate  it  from  the  prison- 
house  of  Shulhan  Aruk  legalism,  in  order  to  render 
it  a  source  of  life  again  for  us  and  those  who  come 
after  us.  Loyalty  to  our  wondrous  past  prompted 
our  heroic  leaders  in  this  free  land  to  so  regenerate 
Judaism  as  to  make  it  a  beacon  light  for  the  living 
and  a  fountain  of  hope  for  all  the  future. 

For  what  is  American  Judaism,  and  for  what  does 
it  stand?  The  very  name  has  been  challenged  by 
those  who  assert  that  there  is,  and  there  should  be, 
but  one  Judaism,  Catholic  Judaism,  as  they  choose 
to  call  it,  pointing  to  the  traditional  law,  the  Halakah, 
as  the  impregnable  fortress  and  foundation  of  united 
Israel.  As  if  this  very  law,  with  its  diverse  codes, 
as  if  this  very  Judaism  of  the  centuries,  was  not  the 
product  of  various  lands  and  civilizations.  Whether 
Palestinian  or  Babylonian,  Alexandrian  or  Persian, 
Polish  or  Portuguese,  medieval  or  modern,  Judaism 
at  all  times  received  its  peculiar  traits,  views  and 
forms  from  its  environments,  which  either  broadened 
it  or  rendered  it  narrow  and  clannish.  In  the  bright 
sunshine  of  Persian,  Hellenic  and  Arabic  culture  it 
expanded  in  scope  and  vision  to  become  a  cosmo- 
politan power,  giving  rise  to  new  systems  of  thought 
and  higher  conceptions  and  ideals  of  life.  In  the 
dreary  Russian  or  medieval  Ghetto  its  growth  be- 
came stunted,  and  it  deteriorated  into  a  system  of  hair- 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  199 

splitting  casuistry  and  superstition.  True,  there 
was  wondrous  sweetness  and  brightness  behind  those 
Ghetto  walls.  As  the  tossing  billows  of  the  ocean, 
built  out  of  the  very  slime,  cast  forth  by  the  oyster 
the  thick  shell  that  protects  its  tiny  life,  so  did  the 
floods  of  persecution  and  oppression  render  Talmudic 
legalism  an  armor  of  protection  around  Judaism  to 
keep  it  intact.  But  how  about  the  life  when  the  shell 
opens?  The  wall  had  to  give  way  before  the  trumpet 
blast  of  liberty,  in  order  that  Judaism  might  again 
thrive  and  rise  to  its  full  stature. 

There  is  no  room  for  Ghetto  Judaism  in  America. 
Look  at  any  of  the  creeds  and  churches  in  our  free 
land!  They  are  all  more  tolerant,  more  liberal,  more 
humane  and  sympathetic  in  their  mutual  relations 
than  those  in  Europe.  Our  free  institutions,  our 
common  school  education,  our  enlightening  press 
and  pulpit,  with  their  appeal  to  common  sense,  en- 
large the  mental  and  social  horizon  and  render  prog- 
ress the  guiding  maxim.  Least  of  all  could  Judaism 
retain  its  medieval  garb,  its  alien  form,  its  seclusive- 
ness,  in  a  country  that  rolled  off  the  shame  and  the 
taunt  of  the  centuries  from  the  shoulders  of  the 
wandering  Jew,  to  place  him,  the  former  Pariah 
of  the  nations,  alongside  of  the  highest  and  the  best, 
according  to  his  worth  and  merit  as  man,  and  among 
a  people  that  adopted  the  very  principles  of  justice  and 
human  dignity  proclaimed  by  Israel's  lawgivers  and 
prophets,  and  made  them  the  foundation  stones  of 
their  commonwealth.  No,  American  Judaism  must 
step  forth,  the  equal  of  any  church  in  broadness  of 
view  and  largeness  of  scope,  as  a  living  truth,  as  an 


200          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

inspiring  message  to  the  new  humanity  that  is  now 
in  the  making,  not  as  a  mere  memory  of  the  past  and 
a  piece  of  Orientalism  in  the  midst  of  vigorous, 
forward-pressing  Occidental  civilization. 

American  Judaism!  What  a  power  of  inspira- 
tion lies  in  these  two  words!  They  spell  the  triumph 
of  the  world's  two  greatest  principles  and  ideals, 
the  consummation  of  mankind's  choicest  possessions, 
the  one  offered  by  the  oldest,  the  other  by  the  young- 
est of  the  great  nations  of  history,  the  highest  moral 
and  spiritual  and  the  highest  political  and  social 
aim  of  humanity;  the  God  of  righteousness  and  holi- 
ness to  unite  and  uplift  all  men  and  nations,  and  the 
Magna  Charta  of  liberty  and  human  equality  to 
endow  each  individual  with  God-like  sovereignty. 
Behold  America,  the  land  of  the  future!  When  the 
sun  sets  on  the  western  horizon  of  Europe,  its  effulgent 
rays  gild  the  hills  that  herald  the  dawn  to  the  new 
world.  The  land  of  promise  for  all  the  persecuted! 
God  hid  it,  as  it  were,  in  His  treasure-house  to  reserve 
it  for  the  most  glorious  chapter  of  human  history, 
when  out  of  the  mingling  of  races  and  sects,  nay,  out 
of  the  boldest,  the  most  courageous  and  most  inde- 
pendent elements  of  society,  a  new,  a  stronger,  health- 
ier and  happier  type  of  men  and  women  should 
emerge,  able  to  cope  successfully  with  the  hardships 
and  problems  of  life,  and  bring  the  world  nearer  to 
the  realization  of  its  highest  and  holiest  dreams  and 
ideals,  social,  political  and  religious.  And  behold 
Judaism  leaving  the  ark,  because  the  flood  of  un- 
righteousness, of  cruelty  and  inhumanity  has  ceased, 
and  looking  out  upon  a  new  earth  and  a  new  heaven, 


A  MERICA  N  JUDA  ISM  201 

wherein  justice,  liberty  and  peace  reign  in  fulfillment 
of  its  seer's  visions.  Was  not  the  cry  "Land!  Land!" 
that  resounded  on  Columbus'  ship,  the  opening  up 
of  a  new  future  for  the  martyr-race  at  the  very  time, 
when  its  woe  and  misery  had  reached  their  culmina^ 
tion  in  the  land  it  had  enriched  by  its  own  toil? 
Then  the  voice  of  God  was  heard  speaking  to  the 
fugitive  Spanish  Jew,  as  He  afterward  spoke  to  the 
German,  the  Galician  and  the  Russian  Jew:  "Go 
forth  and  be  a  blessing  to  the  multitudes  of  people, 
and  a  light  to  the  many  nations  and  classes  that 
settle  in  the  new  hemisphere."  Yet  the  call  was 
only  gradually  heard.  The  God  of  the  fathers  was 
not  forgotten,  but  life's  pressing  demands  made  ever 
new  inroads  upon  religion.  The  continued  disregard 
of  the  ceremonial,  the  dietary  and  the  Sabbath  laws 
amid  the  strife  and  struggle  for  bare  existence  weak- 
ened the  faith  and  blighted  the  self-respect  of  many, 
to  fill  their  souls  with  despondency  or  religious 
apathy.  Of  what  avail  was  the  praying  and  yearning 
for  the  glory  of  a  world  that  has  gone?  As  the 
winter's  snow  before  the  approaching  sun  of  spring, 
so  seemed  the  ancient  creed  to  melt  away  under  the 
genial  rays  of  the  new  world's  freedom.  Then  Re- 
form, a  child  of  German  philosophy,  unfurled  its 
banner  to  revive  the  faith,  reclaim  the  lost  and  fill 
the  houses  of  worship  with  the  inspiring  strains  of 
new  devotion.  Reform,  whatever  our  reactionaries 
may  say  to  the  contrary,  became  the  savior  of  Ju- 
daism in  America.  It  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind 
to  see  Judaism's  great  opportunity  and  realize  the 
mighty  obligation  thrust  upon  the  American  Jew 


202          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

by  the  privileges  he  enjoys.  In  laying  stress  on  the 
essentials  and  pushing  the  smaller  things  into  the 
background,  it  kindled  new  love  and  zeal  for  the 
sacred  heritage  in  the  hearts  of  all,  and  roused  the  self- 
consciousness,  the  self-esteem  of  the  Jew.  It  rendered 
him  both  more  liberal-minded  and  more  liberal- 
hearted. 

At  first  Reform  appealed  to  his  esthetic  taste. 
It  beautified  and  dignified  the  service,  and  modern- 
ized the  synagog  to  reflect  new  luster  on  the  ancient 
faith.  And  here  the  American  spirit  of  independence 
manifested  itself  at  once.  Even  the  conservatives 
dared  not,  as  they  do  in  Europe,  denounce  as  un- 
Jewish  the  organ  and  the  Confirmation,  nor  insist 
on  the  partition  wall  which  all  these  centuries  past 
Orientalism  had  reared  in  the  synagog  to  keep  the 
woman,  the  wife  and  daughter,  out  of  the  main  body 
of  worshippers.  Yes,  a  mere  glance  at  our  temples 
shows  the  working  of  the  American  spirit,  which, 
in  doing  away  with  Orientalism  and  rendering  woman 
the  equal  of  man  in  all  spheres  of  religion,  has  given 
a  new  powerful  impetus  to  all  Jewish  endeavors. 

Then  came  consistent,  systematic  theological 
Reform,  and  took  hold  of  the  free  American  pulpit 
to  preach  in  clarion  notes  those  principles  of  historical 
progress  which,  in  lighting  up  the  traditions  of  the 
past,  took  the  yoke  of  legalism,  the  burden  of  con- 
tinuous self-reproach,  from  the  conscience  of  the 
modern  Jew,  to  lift  him  to  the  heights  of  vision  of 
a  world-uniting  prophetic  religion.  And  here  Amer- 
ican Judaism  soon  scored  another  victory  in  rejec  ing 
the  hypocritical  maxim  of  European  Jewry,  which 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  203 

made  the  rabbi  the  scapegoat  of  the  congregation 
by  insisting  that  the  dietary  and  the  minute  Sabbath 
laws  must  be  observed  by  proxy.  Henceforth, 
manliness,  sincerity  and  the  courage  of  conviction 
became  virtues  prized  in  the  American  rabbi,  and 
the  pulpit  grew  to  be  a  liberalizing  influence,  creating 
a  generation  of  enlightened,  yet  truly  loyal  Jews  and 
Jewesses.  These  were  the  men  and  women  that 
formed  the  strength  and  vigor  of  our  congregations 
and  Jewish  fraternities,  that  started  and  achieved 
the  great  work  required  at  the  time  in  the  cause  of 
religious  education  and  philanthropy.  In  humble 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  success  and  opulence  that 
fell  to  their  lot,  they  reared  the  temples  and  glorious 
institutions  that  have  become  the  object  of  admira- 
tion and  pride  in  the  eyes  of  the  non- Jewish  world, 
and  told  our  brethren  in  Europe  that  the  ancient 
God  of  Israel  still  lives  in  the  heart  of  the  trans- 
Atlantic  Jew. 

And,  as  in  building  up  our  American  institutions 
and  in  fighting  for  American  liberty  and  American 
greatness,  the  Jew  took  a  prominent  part,  as  citizen 
and  as  soldier,  so  did  American  Judaism,  as  em- 
bodied in  its  men  of  progress  and  its  leaders  of  Re- 
form, uphold  the  cause  of  American  freedom  and 
human  equality 

Still,  as  most  of  these  pioneers  spoke  in  the  tongue 
of  their  fatherland,  and  the  progressive  congregations 
themselves  were  recruited  from  the  German  element, 
Reform  itself  seemed  to  many  but  an  exotic  growth, 
an  imported  plant  which  failed  to  strike  deep  roots 
in  the  American  soil. 


204          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Then  came,  the  man  of  profound  practical  insight 
and  of  undaunted  energy  and  perseverance,  Isaac 
M.  Wise,  the  master-builder  of  American  Judaism, 
and  ploughed  the  soil  and  cast  the  seed,  tentatively 
at  first  and  amidst  perplexing  circumstances,  often 
opposed  because  his  plan,  which  ripened  but  slowly, 
was  not  understood.  But  his  indomitable  will  and 
his  unique  power  as  leader  of  men  carried  him  on  to 
triumph  and  lasting  success.  Americanization  of 
the  Jew  was  his  watchword  and  guiding  motive  from 
the  very  day  he  set  foot  on  this  free  soil,  and  American 
Judaism  will  forever  be  bound  up  with  the  Union 
of  American  Hebrew  Congregations,  of  which  he 
was  the  founder,  and  with  the  Hebrew  Union  College, 
by  which  he  became  to  America  what  Johanan  ben 
Zakkai,  what  Abba  Areka  became,  at  great  turning- 
points  of  Jewish  history,  the  master,  the  teacher  of 
teachers,  the  harbinger  of  a  new  era  of  centralized 
intellectual  and  religious  progress  for  coming  genera- 
tions. At  first  the  Union  aimed  at  bringing  all  but 
the  ultra-orthodox  congregations  together  for  the 
purpose  of  creating  a  center  of  Jewish  learning  for 
the  training  of  rabbis  and  the  preservation  of  the 
ancestral  faith  in  the  new  country.  In  this  spirit 
of  a  common  obligation  and  a  common  solidarity 
of  interest,  the  Union  was  founded  in  1873  and  the 
College  opened  in  1875,  and  when  on  April  12,  1881, 
the  present  edifice  was  dedicated  by  Dr.  Wise,  the 
immortal  founder  and  lifelong  president  of  the 
College,  and  by  the  venerable  president  of  the  Board, 
Mr.  Bernhard  Bettmann,  whom  a  benign  Provi- 
dence has  spared  to  us  to  witness  the  further  progress 


A  MERICA  N  JUDA  ISM  205 

of  the  institution,  there  was  but  one  progressive 
American  Israel  and  one  Judaism,  constituting,  as 
Dr.  Wise  .said,  "neither  a  race  nor  a  nation,  but  a 
religious  denomination,"  all  realizing  the  need  of 
American-bred  rabbis,  because  the  generation  born 
on  this  soil  is  intensely  American,  the  need  of  en- 
lightened rabbis,  for  this  is  a  liberal  age  and  an  en- 
lightened country."  "All  lines  of  demarcation  were 
abandoned  in  the  Union;  all  distinctions  between 
Orthodox  and  Reform  were  regarded  as  obsolete,  in 
view  of  the  broad,  liberal,  humane  and  impartial 
spirit  which  governed  the  institution."  Still,  the 
conflicting  views  were  but  hushed,  not  harmonized, 
and  the  friction  both  in  theory  and  practice  was  sure 
to  come.  The  first  graduates  of  the  College,  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  American  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence, men  of  eloquence  and  of  bold  initiative, 
called  to  the  pulpits  of  Einhorn,  Hirsch  and  others, 
became  outspoken  champions  of  liberalism,  and  en- 
thusiastically espoused  the  principles  voiced  at  the 
Philadelphia  and  later  at  the  Pittsburg  conference. 
So  clouds  gathered  over  the  College,  and  when  finally 
the  Pittsburgh  platform  of  radical  Reform,  hailed 
by  Dr.  Wise,  who  presided,  as  a  "Jewish-American 
declaration  of  independence,"  was  adopted,  there  arose 
a  storm  which,  notwithstanding  the  resolutions  of 
perfect  neutrality  passed  by  the  Union,  divided 
American  Israel  anew  into  two  camps  and  created 
the  imperative  demand  for  two  Rabbinical  schools, 
one  for  the  conservative  congregations  of  the  East, 
the  other  for  the  progressive  congregations,  -then 
still  forming  the  great  majority  in  the  land.  Yet  far 


206          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

from  doing  harm,  the  storm  cleared  the  atmosphere 
and  strengthened  the  cause  of  progress.  It  brought 
about  a  fuller  consolidation  of  the  forces. 

There  is  room,  nay,  a  necessity  for  both  schools, 
and  as  it  was  said  of  the  schools  of  Hillel  and  of 
Shammai,  we  may  say:  "The  words  of  the  living 
God  are  in  both."  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  way 
of  their  working  together  for  the  common  good  in 
matters  concerning  the  welfare  and  the  needs  of 
American  Israel,  as  is  done  at  present  in  regard  to 
the  English  Bible  translation. 

In  our  camp  the  way  was  paved  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Union  Prayer  Book,  which,  based  on  Ein- 
horn's  inimitable  German  work  of  genius,  kindled 
a  new  religious  fervor  in  young  and  old,  and  became 
a  source  of  comfort,  of  elevation  and  inspiration  to 
tens  of  thousands  to  whom  the  old  ritual  remained 
and  will  ever  remain  a  sealed  book.  By  adopting 
the  same,  the  well-nigh  two  hundred  congregations 
of  the  Union  placed  themselves  on  the  side  of  Reform, 
endorsing  the  fundamental  principle  that  not  in  a 
restoration  of  the  Palestinian  State  and  temple,  but  in 
building  up  of  a  universal  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  peace,  to  which  all  lands  and  ages,  all  the  great 
ones  on  earth,  contribute  their  share,  will  Israel's 
mission  be  fulfilled. 

For  the  Union  the  opportunity  came  somewhat 
later  to  place  itself  on  record  as  advocating  the  Re- 
form principle,  when,  in  1898,  in  view  of  the  Zion- 
istic  movement,  it  declared  itself  to  be  unalterably 
opposed  to  political  Zionism,  and  America  to  be  the 
home  and  the  Zion  of  hope  of  the  American  Jew, 
Judaism's  mission  being  spiritual,  not  political. 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  207 


Small  and  humble  in  its  beginnings,  the  Union 
has  grown  into  a  mighty  instrument  in  promoting 
and  spreading  the  teachings  of  progressive  Judaism 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 
By  so  doing  and  encouraging  systematic  work  in 
behalf  of  religious  education,  by  its  synagog  and  school 
extension  work,  and  the  generous  support  of  other 
educational  efforts  besides  the  College,  it  has  strength- 
ened the  feeble,  rallied  the  scattered,  and  created 
centers  of  religious  life  in  remote  parts  of  the  land. 
It  has  become  an  efficient  force  in  defending  the  cause 
of  the  Jew  and  his  civic  rights  the  world  over,  to  make 
the  name  of  the  American  Jew  and  of  American 
Judaism  respected  and  honored  near  and  far. 

But  the  strength  and  soul  of  the  Union,  its  life- 
center,  is  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  the  institution 
of  learning  which  since  1883  has  sent  forth  130  rabbis 
to  occupy  most  of  the  prominent  pulpits  in  the  land, 
and  to  wield  a  powerful  influence  in  the  cause  of  the 
religious  education  and  social  elevation  of  the  Jew. 
The  Hebrew  Union  College  has  created  a  new  type 
of  rabbi,  a  new  standard  for  the  Jewish  ministry, 
one  more  congenial  to  the  American  soil  and  more 
responsive  to  the  demands  of  a  free,  vigorous  and 
enlightened  people.  The  vocation  of  the  American 
rabbi  is  to  promote  the  personal,  moral  and  spiritual 
welfare  of  old  and  young,  of  the  members  of  his  flock 
and  the  stranger  at  the  gate,  and  manifest  a  deep 
concern  in  all  communal  interests,  in  all  the  great 
issues  and  problems  of  the  times,  instead  of  being 
closeted  up  in  his  study.  Judaism  must  be  to  him  a 
living  truth,  the  hallowing  of  life,  a  battle  for  truth 


208          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

and  social  justice,   and   not  mere  archaeology  and 
ritualism,  not  dry  learning  and  dead  formalism. 

While,  therefore,  we  eagerly  and  reverently  study 
the  past,  deriving  strength  and  light  from  the  rich 
storehouses  of  Jewish  literature  and  history,  inspira- 
tion and  fervor,  truth  and  righteousness  from  Bible, 
Talmud  and  Rabbinical  writings,  we  do  not  foster 
and  cultivate  that  cold  and  colorless  "Wissenschaft 
des  Judenihums"  (science  of  Judaism),  which  fails 
to  thrill  the  heart  and  kindle  the  soul  with  the  spark 
from  the  live  coal  from  God's  empyrean,  and  is  ob- 
viously compatible  also  with  skepticism,  atheism 
and  hypocrisy.  Like  Heaven's  manna,  which  was 
meat  for  the  old  and  pabulum  for  the  young,  ours  must 
be  truth  for  head  and  heart,  for  sage  and  simple,  for 
Jew  and  Non-Jew,  positive  as  well  as  progressive.  We 
want,  above  all,  men  of  power  and  enthusiasm, 
men  of  faith  and  of  principle,  men  of  the  spirit, 
fearless  champions  of  righteousness,  inspiring  and 
inspired  leaders  and  workers.  We  want  sincerity, 
and  therefore  we  draw  no  boundary  lines  for  scien- 
tific, critical  and  historical  research,  either  in  the 
Biblical  or  the  philosophical  and  Hellenistic  realm, 
to  warn  off  the  student,  saying,  "Touch  me  not!" 
thereby  to  awaken  doubt  and  dissent  in  the  truth- 
seeking  youth.  We  apply  rather  the  historical  meth- 
od, which  shows  the  past  in  all  its  stages  and  phases 
to  be  a  continuous  process  of  evolution  and  involution, 
so  as  to  enable  us  not  only  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate the  entire  religious  life  of  the  various  ages, 
but  also  to  arrive  at  a  deeper  comprehension  of  the 
needs  of  our  own  time,  and  find  the  true  justification 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  209 

for,  as  well  as  the  logical  necessity  of,  altering  our 
forms  of  religion  in  view  of  life's  altered  conditions. 
Nay,  more.  The  very  principle  of  development  and 
continual  progress  casts  its  searchlight  on  the  remotest 
past  and  the  most  distant  future,  to  show  the  provi- 
dential working  of  the  Jewish  genius  as  the  creator 
and  promoter  of  the  highest  religious  truth  for  man- 
kind, and  thus  explain  the  world-mission  of  the  Jew 
and  his  relation  to  the  two  great  world-religions, 
which  are  flesh  of  his  flesh  and  spirit  of  his  spirit. 
Particularly  does  a  deeper  insight  into  Prophetism 
and  Mosaism,  such  as  we  endeavor  to  obtain  in  our 
studies,  bring  out  in  clear,  ringing  notes  the  message 
of  Judaism  to  our  age,  the  message  of  social  justice, 
by  which  all  the  great  vexatious  problems  of  our  in- 
dustrial and  social  life  are  to  find  their  ultimate 
and  peaceful  solution. 

Surely  to  minds  thus  trained,  to  hearts  thus  pre- 
pared, the  Jewish  ministry  must  be  more  than  a  mere 
profession,  and  Judaism  more  than  a  mere  congrega- 
tional and  communal,  scholastic  or  national  concern. 
It  can  be  nothing  less  than  a  world-task,  a  power 
working  for  righteousness,  individual  and  social, 
and  for  truth  universal,  to  influence,  to  uplift  and  to 
spiritualize  all  of  life  and  the  whole  of  humanity. 
These  are  the  views  and  traditions  of  the  Hebrew 
Union  College,  with  its  faculty  representing  eminent 
Jewish  scholarship,  devoted  to  the  cause  of  learning, 
and  its  administration  representing  sound,  practical 
wisdom  and  whole-hearted  loyalty  to  our  time-hon- 
ored faith. 

American  Judaism,  as  represented  by  the  Union 
and  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  stands  for  loyalty 


210          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

as  well  as  for  liberalism,  for  faithfulness  as  well  as 
for  freedom  of  thought,  for  positiveness  as  well  as 
for  progressiveness  in  religion,  for  a  profound  Jewish 
consciousness  and  Jewish  spirituality  as  well  as  for 
a  genuine  and  strong  American  spirit  and  sentiment. 
For  ours  is  a  religious  and  ethical  truth  that  appeals 
to  all  hearts,  and  is  bound  to  win  a  world  eager  to 
listen  and  learn.  Ours  is  a  religion  of  righteousness 
that  will  have  its  share  in  the  moulding  of  the  life 
and  character  of  all  men  and  classes  in  a  land  in  which 
the  Jew's  voice  is  heard  as  arbiter  of  peace,  as  states- 
man and  as  educator  and  benefactor  of  men.  To  us, 
therefore,  liberal  Judaism  in  Germany  to-day  looks 
for  inspiration  and  re-invigoration ;  to  us  liberal 
Judaism  in  England  looks  for  leadership  and  leaders. 
Will  this  Judaism  of  ours  assume  a  different  aspect 
amidst  the  constant  influx  of  new  elements  of  Jewry 
bringing  along  different  views  and  traditions,  which 
tends  to  lead  backward  instead  of  forward,  which, 
instead  of  Americanizing  the  Jew,  threatens  to 
Orientalize  him?  I,  for  one,  have  too  much  confidence 
in  our  blessed  land  and  its  institutions  to  fear  for  the 
future.  The  foundations  of  liberty  and  human 
equality  laid  by  the  Puritan,  the  Quaker  and  the 
Cavalier,  by  the  framers  of  the  American  Constitu- 
tion, will  not  be  overthrown  nor  radically  changed 
by  the  millions  that  are  yet  to  enter  the  land.  Neither 
will  the  American  Jew  and  American  Judaism  be 
Russianized,  Hebraized  or  Orientalized  by  visionary 
idealists.  The  process  of  fermentation,  of  assimila- 
tion, will  require  years  and  decades,  but  as  to  the 
outcome  we  need  not  fear.  You  may  as  well  believe 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  211 

that  the  Hudson  will  some  day  turn  its  waters  back- 
ward to  the  source  as  that  American  Judaism  will 
retrograde  and  despise  a  civilization  that  gave 
humanity  its  individual  and  social  liberty  and  equality 
under  the  very  influence  of  the  Decalogue  of  Sinai. 

All  the  greater  is  the  task  and  the  responsibility 
of  the  Union  and  the  Hebrew  Union  College  as  guar- 
dian and  banner-bearer  of  progressive  American 
Judaism,  and  you,  the  delegates  of  the  Congregations, 
must  uphold  and  strengthen  our  arm.  You  have 
reared  the  institution  of  Jewish  learning  in  the 
American  spirit  upon  democratic  principles,  to  render 
it  a  light-house  for  the  people  and  a  power-house 
of  the  spirit  for  congregations  and  leaders,  and  you 
dare  not  rest  until  it  stand  forth  a  monument  of 
spiritual  grandeur  to  reflect  credit  upon  the  entire 
body  of  American  Jews  and  rank  in  efficiency  and 
comprehensive  learning  alongside  of  any  similar 
American  institution. 

A  few  princely  donations  by  men  whose  names 
have  become  a  household  word  in  American  Israel 
encouraged  us  to  begin  erecting  an  edifice,  such  as 
has  been  planned,  more  adequate  to  the  needs  and 
demands  of  a  large  theological  school  than  the  one 
we  have  had  until  now,  but  more  is  needed  for  its 
completion  and  more  for  its  maintenance.  More 
contributions  are  necessary  to  complete  the  I.  M. 
Wise  fund,  and  many  more  scholarships  than  we 
have  for  the  encouragement  of  our  students.  Nor 
can  we  ever  expect  to  build  up  a  true  academic  school 
of  Jewish  learning  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word 
without  having  chairs  endowed  for  the  Oriental 


212          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

languages  and  for  Hellenistic  literature,  neither  will 
we  be  able  fully  to  equip  the  modern  rabbi  with  the 
knowledge  required  for  communal  work  without  a 
chair  for  Applied  Sociology  and  Scientific  Jewish 
Philanthropy. 

I  am  well  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  gigantic 
efforts  made  towards  ameliorating  the  social  condi- 
tion of  the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  our 
unfortunate  brethren  flocking  to  our  shores  from  the 
benighted  East,  push  all  other  demands  into  the 
background,  and  the  stupendous  work  done  by  our 
charitable  and  educational  institutions  in  the  various 
cities  of  the  land  practically  monopolizes  the  interest 
and  energy  of  our  warm-hearted  well-to-do  Jews  and 
Jewesses.  Still  it  is  the  soul  and  not  the  body,  it 
is  Judaism  and  not  the  Jew  that  claims  the  first 
consideration  of  the  Union.  Look  at  the  motto 
of  the  Union.  Its  seal  bears  as  inscription  the  words 
found  on  the  first  pages  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  Prayer 
Book:  Talmud  Torah  Keneged  Kullam.  "None 
of  the  great  works  of  charity  and  benevolence  done 
for  the  benefit  of  suffering  and  struggling  humanity 
equals  in  value  that  which  is  done  for  the  promotion 
of  the  Torah,  for  the  planting  of  the  Jewish  faith 
and  Jewish  truth  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people," 
It  is  the  religious  heritage  of  the  Jew  that  trained 
his  soul  to  become  leader  in  philanthropy  and  the 
champion  of  righteousness. 

The  Torah  is  the  tree  of  life,  the  fruitage  of  which 
are  the  virtues  of  the  Jew. 

Look  then,  ye  delegates  and  members  of  the 
Union,  as  faithful  guardians  to  the  growing  influence 


AMERICAN  JUDAISM  213 

and  power  of  our  temple  of  learning  with  the  ark  of 
the  Law  in  its  Holy  of  Holies,  the  Hebrew  Union 
College,  "the  stronghold  of  free  scientific  research 
and  of  religious  progress."  Make  it  a  monument  of 
Jewish  loyalty  to  the  ancient  faith,  worthy  of  our 
glorious  country  and  of  free  American  Israel.  Let 
Jewish  scholarship  in  America,  permeated  by  the 
spirit  of  healthy  progress  and  illumined  by  the  light 
of  modern  research,  be  one  that  enlists  the  attention 
of  the  world.  Let  our  educational  institutions  for 
rabbis  and  for  teachers  challenge  their  kindred  in 
spiritual  and  intellectual  power  and  efficiency,  and 
the  cause  of  progressive  American  Judaism  will  be 
assured  and  its  future  bright  and  great. 

"When  all  thy  children  are  taught  of  the  Lord, 
great  will  be  the  peace  of  thy  children,"  the  builders 
of  the  temple  of  humanity's  God.  Amen. 


19. 

MOSES  AND  JESUS.* 

AT7HEN  Moses  prayed  to  God  to  show  him  His 
*  *  ways,  the  Lord  said:  "I  will  make  My  glory 
pass,  and  thou  shalt  behold  Me,  after  I  have  passed 
by  thee,  but  My  face  shall  not  be  seen."  All  begin- 
nings of  things  are  hidden  from  mortal  eyes.  No 
eye  ever  saw  the  grass  grow.  Nor  did  any  one  ever 
observe  the  awakening  of  self-consciousness  in  a 
child.  The  origin  of  physical  and  mental  life  is 
veiled.  God  says:  Let  there  be  light!  and  behold, 
there  is  light.  However  much  light  modern  investi- 
gation has  thrown  upon  the  process  of  evolution  of 
matter  and  mind,  creation  and  revelation  remain 
mysteries.  As  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  so 
science  is  still  puzzled  by v  the  question:  What  came 
first?  The  egg  or  the  hen?  The  acorn  or  the  oak? 
The  grain  of  sand  or  the  hi^?  Science,  in  order  to 
operate,  must  separate  cause  and  effect,  while  actually 
they  form  one  organic  whole.  In  history,  too,  the 
problem  vexes  us:  Are  the  great  men,  the  master- 
minds of  the  centuries,  the  products  or  the  builders 
of  the  ages?  Is  the  genius  the  child  or  the  father  of 
the  idea  or  the  movement  it  represents?  Is  music 
the  creation  or  the  creator  of  Bach  and  Beethoven? 
Did '  poetry  produce  Shakespeare,  or  Shakespeare 

«K 

*Lecture  delivered  before  the  Beth  El  Congregation,  Albany 
in  1892. 


216          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

his  poetry?     Did   art   make   a   Phidias,   a   Michael 
Angelo  and  a  Raphael,  or  the  men  these  arts? 

There  was  a  time  when  religion  was  looked  upon 
as  the  invention  of  priestcraft,  and  the  great  religious 
leaders  and  law-givers  as  mere  impostors.  We 
know  better  now.  We  have  learned  to  recognize 
religion  as  the  strongest  and  deepest  of  all  human 
forces,  as  the  one  that  cradled  laws,  arts  and  sciences, 
as  the  guardian  of  morality  and  the  chief  factor  of 
civilization.  But  the  prevailing  tendency  to  skep- 
ticism and  criticism  has,  on  the  other  hand,  led  us 
to  attribute  everything  to  the  successive  work  of 
ages,  and  to  underrate  individual  power.  We  are 
inclined  to  reduce  the  lives  of  Moses  and  Jesus,  not 
to  speak  of  the  founders  of  other  religious  sytems, 
to  mere  myths  and  fables,  because  they  are  wrapt  in 
legend.  Yet  is  the  great  drama  in  which  a  powerful 
nation  here,  and  a  world-conquering  sect  there,  are 
ushered  into  existence,  really  cleared  and  brightened 
up  by  the  mere  striking  off  of  such  names  as  Moses 
and  Jesus  from  the  pages  of  history?  Is  the  great 
historical  fact  of  the  appearance  of  a  power  like 
Judaism  and  like  Christianity  better  accounted  for 
by  unknown  impersonal  factors  than  by  known  per- 
sonal forces?  The  more  I  ponder  on  the  history  of 
Moses  and  Jesus  in  connection  with  the  two  great 
religions  of  which  each  forms  the  central  figure,  the 
more  does  the  conviction  take  hold  of  me  that  the 
life  and  teaching  of  each  not  only  reflected,  but 
actually  determined  and  embodied  the  character, 
the  aims  and  ideals  of  their  followers  to  an  eminent 
degree.  Their  own  principles  became  characteristic 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  217 

types  of  the  religions  they  represent,  and  because 
these  principles  run  in  convergent  lines,  they  could 
not  avoid  colliding  with  one  another,  while,  in  fact, 
they  must  merge  into  one  another  and  complete 
each  other,  as  they  have  grown  from  one  and  the  same 
root.  And  only  in  the  same  measure  as  a  mutual 
understanding  is  reached  between  them,  are  mutual 
recognition  and  respect  and  a  final  reconciliation 
between  Jew  and  Christian  made  possible. 

I. 

Who  is  Moses,  around  whose  banner  we,  the 
progressive  sons  of  the  nineteenth  century,  are  stil 
to  rally,  and  whose  law  we  must,  under  a  thousand- 
fold martyrdom,  if  it  needs  be,  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile 
world,  forever  uphold?  Egypt's  unlocked  hierogly- 
phical  treasures  furnish  no  glimpse  of  him  and  his 
doings.  The  monuments  of  King  Rameses  II.  and 
Menephtha,  his  contemporaries,  show  no  trace  of 
the  Hebrew  exodus  with  its  miraculous  events.  The 
annalists  are  perfectly  silent  concerning  Jahveh  and 
his  servants.  Exactly  as  the  law  of  gravitation  by 
which  Earth  and  Neptune  are  bound  to  the  solar 
orb,  and  this  again  to  a  larger  system  of  stars, 
flashed  upon  the  mind  of  Isaac  Newton  to  enlighten 
for  him  the  universe,  so  did  the  law  of  Sinai,  by 
which  nations  are  freed  from  thraldom  and  the 
eternal  right  of  man  is  established,  beam  upon  the 
mind  of  the  Hebrew  shepherd.  Explain  it  as  you 
may,  a  spark  of  the  divine  fire  of  righteousness  fell 
upon  the  soul  of  Moses  to  dispel  for  him  the  world's 


218          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

darkness.  The  Decalogue  may  be  the  successive 
work  of  generations;  Moses  was  -th,e.  first  to  give 
voice  to  the  call:  "I  am  the  Lord  who  leadeth  out  of 
the  house  of  bondage." 

Did  he  then,  steal  the  name  Jahveh  out  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  Egyptian  priesthood,  as  has  been 
claimed?  Or  was  it  transferred  from  some  obscure 
corner  of  Arabia  by  some  unknown  seer  to  Israel's 
sanctuaries,  as  recent  critics  maintain?  The  idea  is 
so  preposterous,  that  one  wonders  how  wise  men 
could  seriously  express  it.  On  the  contrary,  if  any- 
thing, Jahveh,  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Moses  and 
of  Elijah,  strikes  us  as  being  rather  too  realistic,  too 
natural  a  power.  Dwelling  on  the  heights  of  Sinai, 
enwrapt  in  pillars  of  fire  and  smoke,  sending  forth 
hail  and  stormwind  to  shake  the  earth,  the  air  and 
the  water  with  the  powers  of  His  awful  majesty, 
He  still  had  in  those  days  all  the  qualities  of  a  Be- 
douin Deity  ruling  the  vast  desert.  However,  the 
spiritual  insight  of  Moses  lifted  Sinai  to  sublimer 
heights.  His  religious  genius  invested  the  thunder, 
the  lightning  and  whirlwind  of  Jahveh  with  the  sacred 
purpose  of  purging  the  world  of  its  wrong  in  order  to 
establish  righteousness.  Earth  assumed  a  new  aspect, 
when  the  frown  or  smile  of  heaven  betokened  the 
wrath  or  the  pleasure  of  a  God  of  Justice.  The 
wisdom  and  skill  of  the  priests  on  the  Nile  were  set 
to  naught  by  the  plain  shepherd  of  Midian  who, 
without  title  and  mandate  from  their  schools,  brought 
a  new  message  from  the  great  Ruler  of  heaven.  How 
did  all  the  gods  of  proud  Egypt  crouch  and  tremble 
before  the  great  God  of  Israel  whose  shield  was 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  219 

righteousness,  whose  seal  truth,  whose  essence  the 
all-devouring  fire  of  holiness!  All  their  gigantic 
temples,  obelisks  and  pyramids,  all  the  colossal 
structures  of  art  and  science  dotting  Egypt  from 
sea  to  cataract,  totter  and  tumble  as  His  hand  touches, 
as  His  eye  scans  them,  since  they  are  built  on  injustice, 
on  oppression. 

Yes,  there  is  a  deep  inward  relationship,  i  a  great 
moral  affinity  between  God  and  His  prophet,  There 
is  a  fire  in  Moses'  bosom,  mighty  and  deep  as  in  a 
glowing  yet  slumbering  volcano,  the  top  of  which  is 
all  serene  and  bright  with  smiling  landscapes,  while 
suddenly  it  pours  forth  its  devouring  streams  of  lava, 
to  spread  terror  round  about.  Moses'  soul  is  set 
ablaze  with  the  holy  wrath  of  justice  at  the  sight  of 
violence  and  innocent  suffering  to  avenge  the  wrong 
on  the  evil-doer,  while  his  heart  reaches  forth  in  tender 
compassionate  love  to  vindicate  the  right  of  the 
oppressed.  Thus  is  Jahveh  a  jealous  God,  who  toler- 
ates no  wrong.  His  fire  consumes  injustice  and 
falsehood,  while  righteousness  is  at  the  core.  There 
is  something  hard  as  a  rock  and  unyielding  like 
granite  in  the  character  of  Moses,  yet  only  he  who 
says:  "Let  the  heavens  fall,  but  justice  prevail!"  is 
the  man  to  unhinge  a  world  of  cruel  wickedness  and 
folly,  and  rebuild  it  on  the  adamantine  foundations 
of  the  right  and  the  good. 

There  is  a  sternness  and  rigidity  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  that  often  startles  and  scares  the  soft- 
hearted, yet  this  was  the  forge  in  which  the  Jewish 
character  was  to  be  formed,  and  the  laws  made,  that 
were  to  outlast  the  ages.  This  was  the  quarry  out 


220          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

of  which  "pyramids  of  men"  were  built;  this  the  chisel 
with  which  men  were  carved,  endowed  with  a  heroism 
that  defies  death. 

In  the  plain  of  Babylonia  palaces  have  been 
unearthed,  each  brick  of  which  has  the  name  of  King 
Nebuchadnezzar,  its  builder,  engraved  on  it.  So  does 
every  single  law  in  the  Mosaic  books,  no  matter 
when  they  were  written,  bear  the  stamp  of  that 
mind  which  liberated  the  Hebrew  slaves  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  justice,  saying:  "Yield  not!  Swerve  not! 
Right  must  triumph  over  every  wrong!"  Hearken 
to  the  awe-inspiring  threats  of  the  Pentateuch! 
Read  the  fulminant  and  fury-lashed  appeals  of  the 
prophets!  Or  peruse  the  minute  statutes  of  Talmud- 
ical  casuistry.  They  are  all  born  of  the  same  spirit 
of  unbending  righteousness,  of  unflinching  truth. 
The  sum  and  substance  of  Judaism  is:  As  God's  eyes 
cannot  behold  evil,  so  banish  all  injustice  from  His 
sight.  Stand  up  in  defence  of  the  right,  be  it  that  of 
the  high  or  the  low-born,  of  the  rich  or  the  poor,  the 
free  or  the  slave,  the  native  or  the  stranger!  Yield 
not,  for  justice  is  God's.  Brook  no  sin.  Bad  means 
can  never  be  justified  by  good  ends.  There  is  for- 
giveness and  repentance  for  sinners,  but  not  until 
the  wrong  has  been  undone;  for  the  fruit  of  sin  is 
death,  and  Jahveh  is  the  God  of  life. 

And  behold  the  people  moulded  by  the  grea 
law-giver!  What  are  the  classic  people  of  Hellas 
with  their  master-works  of  art  and  science,  the 
Roman  with  his  law,  the  Chaldean  with  his  astronomy, 
and  all  the  great  nations  of  history  with  their  glorious 
achievements  compared  with  the  insignificant,  the 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  221 


despised  and  persecuted  yet  unyielding  Jew?  In- 
destructible like  Sinai,  he  seems  to  be  hewn  out  of 
the  rock.  While  the  rest  furnished  the  framework, 
the  modes  of  culture,  the  followers  of  Moses  offered 
the  basis,-  the  essence,  the  law  of  conduct.  Men 
can  live  without  letters,  without  art  and  science, 
without  comfort  and  beauty,  but  not  as  men  without 
justice  and  goodness.  And  what  is  the  secret  of  this 
wonderful  endurance  of  the  Jew,  his  marvelous  power 
of  resistance?  The  souls  of  all  coming  generations 
partook  in  the  oath  of  the  covenant  of  Sinai,  say  the 
rabbis.  Indeed,  there  is  a  spark  of  that  fire  of  Moses 
in  every  Jew,  to  make  him  defy  the  persecutor  and 
brave  the  enticer.  The  baptismal  fount  only  worked, 
according  to  Leroy  Beaulieu,  by  the  law  of  natural 
selection  to  make  the  rest  of  the  Jews  the  firmer 
and  more  steadfast.  Sneer  as  much  as  you  may  at 
those  sharply  cut  features  of  the  Hebrew,  they 
betoken  resistance  to  the  last.  Light-hearted  au- 
diences may  applaud  Portia  and  vilify  Shylock. 
If,  however,  heroic  wrestling  with  injustice  deserves 
the  prize,  Shylock  must  receive  our  homage.  The 
laws  of  Venice  are  wrong,  and  the  Jew  is  right.  Nor 
is  the  Jew  satisfied  with  a  bill  drawn  on  the  world 
beyond  the  grave.  This  life  of  man  here  on  earth 
must  turn  out  right.  Justice  must  hold  sway  first, 
then  love  and  peace  can  rei^i — not  before.  From 
Isaiah  to  Cremieux  and  Lasker,  the  Jews  have  been 
God's  champions  of  Justice  and  Truth. 

And  glance  over  the  march  of  centuries.  Watch 
the  path  of  history.  The  trumpet  blasts  of  Sinai, 
announcing  Jahveh's  Day  of  Judgment,  sounded 


222          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

the  dirge  over  antiquity's  fall  and  rung  in  the  era  of 
Christianity.  Only  by  an  appeal  from  the  New 
Testament  to  the  Old,  from  Jesus  to  Moses,  did 
Luther,  Calvin  and  Cromwell  succeed  in  combating 
and  defeating  Papal  tyranny.  The  tempests  and 
thunders  of  Mount  Horeb  ushered  in  the  Reformation, 
the  Revolution,  the  American  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, the  modern  era  of  liberty. 

There  is  a  majestic  grandeur  in  the  statue  of 
Moses  created  by  the  chisel  of  Michael  Angelo.  His 
every  muscle  and  nerve  from  head  to  foot  betray  a 
resolute  firmness  of  will  and  clearness  of  purpose, 
which  seem  to  inspire  us  with  confidence,  telling  us 
to  safely  commit  the  destinies  of  mankind  to  these 
arms  that  carry  the  tablets  of  the  law,  to  those 
shoulders  that  bear  that  lofty  head  protuberant  with 
light.  And  yet  Moses  died  with  the  land  of  promise 
unreached  before  him.  He  claimed  no  perfection, 
no  infallibility,  no  absolute  goodness  or  holiness. 
He  was  but  the  servant  of  the  Most  High,  and  died, 
leaving  his  work  to  be  continued  and  finished  by  all 
the  coming  generations. 

II. 

Who,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Jesus,  the  central  figure 
of  the  New  Testament,  the  divine  ideal  of  the  Chris- 
tian? We  shall  leave  aside  the  story  of  the  cruci- 
fixion, the  tragic  end  of  Jesus,  with  which  Christianity 
began  its  course.  Never  would  the  name  of  Jesus 
have  been  uttered  by  the  Jews  with  any  but  reveren- 
tial admiration,  had  the  guilt  and  the  curse  of  his 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  223 


murder  not  been  rlung  upon  them,  his  own  kinsmen, 
at  a  time  when  it  was  deemed  wise  policy  to  exonerate 
the  Roman  prefect  and  his  soldiers  from  the  crime. 
We  shudder  at  the  thought  of  the  millions  that  fell 
as  victims  to  this  slanderous  charge;  but  we  do  not 
blame  Jesus  for  the  cruelties  perpetrated  in  his  name. 
Neither  shall  we  consider  Jesus  as  a  performer  of 
miracles,  in  which  quality  alone,  to  judge  from 
Rabbinical  tradition,  he  left  a  lasting  impression 
on  the  generality  of  Jews.  These  wondrous  cures 
formed  the  specialty  of  the  entire  class  of  Essenes, 
a  sect  of  saintly  hermits  practising  baptism  and 
invocations  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  from  whom  the  car- 
penter's son  of  Nazareth  emanated. 

We  are  exclusively  concerned  here  with  the  great 
popular  teacher  of  Galilee,  the  preacher  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  promulgator  of  a  new 
covenant,  of  a  new  law  of  love,  as  is  the  Christian 
claim.  And  there  behold  the  sweet  silver-tongued 
prophet  of  the  people,  as  he  walks  among  the  un- 
taught and  forsaken,  attracting  the  crowds  by  his 
exquisite  parables  and  bringing  them  the  cheering 
message  of  the  All-loving  Father  in  heaven.  He  moves 
among  sinners  saying,  "I  am  the  good  shepherd  who 
leaves  the  ninety-nine  sheep  in  the  fold,  to  seek  the 
one  that  has  gone  astray  in  order  to  lead  it  back." 
He  takes  his  seat  among  the  forlorn  and  outcasts 
saying,  "Not  the  healthy  need  the  physician,  but  the 
sick."  Listen  to  him  as  he  teaches,  "Be  not  angry 
with  thy  brother!  Resist  not  evil!  Hate  not!  Love 
your  enemies;  bless  them  that  curse  you,  and  do  good 
to  them  that  hate  you."  Or  watch  him,  as  he  takes 


224          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

a  little  child  and,  putting  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd,  says,  "Be  like  little  children,  and  you  are  not 
far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Seeing  a  woman 
dragged  along  to  meet  her  punishment  on  the  charge 
of  adultery,  he  cries  out,  "Let  him  that  is  without 
guilt  cast  the  first  stone!"  and  then  tells  the  fallen 
one,  "Go  thou,  and  sin  no  more!"  There  is  a  wonderful 
music  in  that  voice,  an  undefinable  grace  about  the 
serene  face.  There  is  a  fascinating  charm  about  every 
word  that  drops  from  those  benign  lips. 

And  again  how  bold  and  crushing  does  his  lan- 
guage become  when,  turning  to  the  haughty  aristo- 
cracy, he  exclaims,  "It'  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  or  when  speaking  of 
unlawful  desires  of  the  flesh,  he  says,  "If  thy  eye 
offend  thee,  pluck  it  out!  If  thy  hand  offend  thee, 
cut  it  off.  It  is  better  for  thee  that  one  part  of  thy 
body  should  perish  than  that  thy  whole  body  should 
be  cast  into  hell." 

There  is  a  ring  of  true  greatness  in  all  these  words. 
We  need  not  wonder,  if  the  multitude  followed  with 
ardor  and  admiration  the  young  master  who  spoke 
thus  differently  from  all  the  rest,  eager  to  offer  him 
the  highest  crown  within  the  gift  of  the  Jew,  the 
diadem  of  Messiahship  which  he  bought  at  the 
price  of  his  life. 

Yet  does  this  holy  man  with  all  his  heart-winning 
persuasiveness  and  touching  humanity  really  surpass 
the  imposing  nature  of  Moses?  Does  the  prophet 
of  the  New  Testament  eclipse  the  creative  genius 
of  the  Old?  It  is  like  comparing  a  sweet  flower  to 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  225 


a  mighty  oak,  the  slender  steeple  to  the  massive 
structure  upon  which  it  is  reared. 

Naturally  enough  did  the  twelve  centuries  which 
elapsed  after  Moses  elevate  the  moral  status  of  the 
people,  ennoble  their  ethical  and  spiritualize  their 
religious  views.  Most  of  the  teachings  ascribed  to 
Jesus  by  the  New  Testament  writers  were  current 
among  the  Essenes  and  in  the  Pharisean  schools. 
The  Golden  Rule,  the  so-called  Lord's  Prayer,  the 
greater  part  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  derived 
from  other  sources.  In  fact,  half  of  what  is  attributed 
to  Jesus  contradicts  the  other  half  of  what  he  is  re- 
ported to  have  said.  For  if  he  really  placed  himself 
on  the  shoulders  of  Moses,  saying,  "I  have  not  come 
to  change  one  iota  of  the  law;  I  am  not  come  to 
destroy,  but  to  fulfill,"  he  could  not  well  have  dreamt 
of  antagonizing  either  the  Sabbath  or  the  temple. 
And  if  he  dared  refuse  to  cure  a  heathen  woman, 
saying,  "It  is  not  meet  to  cast  the  bread  to  the  dogs," 
his  was  not  even  the  broad-heartedness  of  a  Hillel 
and  Philo  whose  religion  of  love  knew  no  confines 
of  race  or  sect. 

The  greatness  of  Jesus  lay  in  that  he  lent  new 
grandeur  to  humility,  in  that  he  broke  down  the 
barriers  of  the  school  and  brought  the  wisdom  of 
life  from  the  learned  home  to  the  lowliest,  thus 
striking  the  keynote  of  humanity.  He  actually 
became  the  redeemer  of  the  poor,  the  friend  of  the 
cheerless,  the  comforter  of  the  woe-stricken.  He 
lent,  both  through  his  life  and  through  his  death  as 
the  Man  of  Sorrow,  a  deeper  meaning,  a  more  solemn 
pathos  to  suffering,  sickness  and  sin.  Life  received 


226          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

from  him  a  new  holiness,  a  greater  inspiration.  And 
as  he  went  forth  to  seek  and  provide  for  the  lost 
sheep  in  Israel,  so  did  the  Church  founded  on  his 
name  go  forth  to  redeem  the  poverty  stricken,  the 
ignorant  and  the  neglected,  all  the  lower  classes  of 
society.  Christianity  was  the  gospel  for  the  poor 
and  the  despised.  Hence  all  the  works  of  love, 
charity  and  philanthropy,  fostered  among  the  Jews, 
found  under  the  cross  a  new  powerful  impetus,  a 
larger,  world-wide  scope. 

But  the  very  virtue  of  the  teaching,  of  the  char- 
acter and  life  of  Jesus  was  also  his  weakness.  He 
was  of  that  type  of  idealists  that  appeal  to  the 
sentiments,  but  overlook  the  demands  of  real  life. 
Considering  the  terrible  catastrophe  that  soon 
afterwards  befell  Judea  and  was  already  fast  approach- 
ing, we  are  amazed  at  the  almost  idyllic  life  the 
Nazarene  saint  passes  in  the  midst  of  his  followers 
on  the  beautiful  lake  of  Gennesareth,  perfectly  listless 
and  unconcerned,  while  a  world  around  him  sinks 
into  ruin.  The  sentiments  expressed  by  him  remind 
us  of  a  recluse  waiting  and  praying  for  the  millenium 
of  peace,  while  the  shocks  and  earthquakes  of  war 
resound  in  the  distance.  It  is  the  political  apathy  of 
the  Essene,  which,  in  the  face  of  the  boiling  wrath 
of  the  patriots,  prompts  the  cool  advice:  "Render 
unto  Caesar  what  is  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  what  is 
God's.  'Resist  not-  the  Evil  One\'  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  at  hand!"  This  is  the  substance  of  the  entire 
New  Testament.  "Yield,  rather  than  assert  your 
right!  Swear  not!  Struggle  not!  Abandon  all 
worldly  care  and  ambition.  Renounce  all  possession 


MOSES  AND  JESUS  227 


and  domestic  bliss!  The  God  who  clothes  the  lilies 
in  the  field  will  also  provide  for  you!"  This  was  the 
road  straightway  to  the  cloister  and  the  nunnery, 
to  world-contempt,  to  misanthropy  and  asceticism, 
to  a  double  code  of  ethics,  one  for  the  layman  and 
another  for  the  monk. 

This  principle  of  non-resistance  influenced  and 
determined  the  entire  course  of  Christianity.  While 
Jesus  the  Christ  was,  after  the  visions  of  his  resur- 
rection, expected  to  come  down  from  the  clouds  with 
his  angelic  host,  to  redeem  his  saints,  the  new  sect 
surrendered  the  world  to  the  Evil  One.  "Resist 
not!"  being  the  maxim,  passion,  vice  and  ignorance 
speedily  took  hold  of  the  Church,  and  the  sword 
in  the  hands  of  the  former  persecuted  made  them 
persecutors.  Resist  not!  was  the  principle,  and 
consequently  justice  had  to  yield  to  violence,  and 
truth  to  pagan  falsehood  and  folly.  Error  and  wicked- 
ness forced  their  way  into  the  council  and  up  to  the 
throne,  and  the  mild  figure  of  Jesus  was  transferred 
to  ideal  heights  beyond  the  reach  of  worldly  pursuit. 
He  assumed  now  the  face  of  a  Syrian,  then  of  a 
Greek,  and  later  on  that  of  a  barbarian  god,  and  his 
name  shielded  all  possible  wrong. 

Justice  and  truth  are  the  foundations  of  God's 
throne:  Christ's — the  Christian  God's — is  love,  but 
rather  lacking  in  justice  and  truth.  Jesus'  strong  side 
was  the  heart,  the  sentiment.  And  so  did  Christianity 
deepen  the  pathos,  enrich  the  emotional  side  of  life. 
By  her  care  for  the  sick  and  the  suffering,  by  her 
cultivation  of  art,  of  music,  of  painting,  the  entire 
soul-life  of  man  was  unfolded  and  refined  by  the 


228          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Church  as  by  no,  other  sect.  Yet  when  after  the 
centuries  of  medieval  barbarism  and  despotism, 
freedom  of  thought  and  action  was  to  be  regained 
for  Europe,  when  the  State,  when  science  and  in- 
dustrial independence  had  to  be  built  up,  Sinai 
with  its  Decalogue  offered  a  safer  basis  than  did 
Calvary  with  its  beatitudes.  The  idealism  of  Jesus 
was,  like  any  other  Utopian  system,  like  communism 
and  mysticism,  the  vision  of  a  time  when  the  wolf 
and  the  lamb  would  pasture  together  in  peace,  not 
the  programme  of  a  life  of  struggle  and  strife,  full 
of  contrasts  such  as  ours  is. 

Moses,  too,  spent  forty  days  on  the  heights  of 
Sinai  immersed  in  contemplation,  but  he  stepped 
down  with  his  law  to  elevate  and  educate  his  people 
for  their  high  mission  of  righteousness  and  truth. 
For  religion  is  not  a  dreamland,  a  mere  realm  of 
vision,  a  hope  for  a  world  to  come.  It  is  the  up- 
building of  divine  life  in  all  its  realities  here  on 
earth.  It  is  the  indwelling  of  God  in  man.  Jesus 
represents  the  highest  ideal  of  the  Christian;  Moses 
points  to  a  higher  type  of  manhood.  Neither  Sjnai 
nor  Golgotha,  but  Zion,  as  the  goal  of  all  the  nations 
in  history,  is  the  focus  and  goal  of  united  humanity 
Did  Christianity  indeed  enshrine  and  embody  love, 
the  feminine  element  of  the  world?  Judaism  first 
insists  on,  and  battles  for,  righteousness  and  truth. 
Duty,  the  sterner  part  of  life,  is  also  the  stronger  and 
more  indispensable  one.  Still  we  believe  that,  as  has 
recently  been  so  well  said,  the  two  together  yield 
the  perfect  ideal;  their  unity  will  make  humanity 
whole  and  free.  Amen. 


20. 


THE  HISTORICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
JEWISH  CHARITY.* 

/CHARITY  from  the  Latin  Caritas  is  display  of 
^^  love  and  sympathy  by  man  towards  man. 
It  is  accordingly  to  be  viewed  as  a  trait  of  humanity, 
as  the  Greek  word  philanthropy  also  suggests.  This 
is  exactly  true  to  a  certain  extent.  The  history  of 
man  is  essentially  the  history  of  benevolence.  While 
the  brute  does  not  extend  its  compassion  beyond 
the  maternal  care  for  its  young,  and  the  sight  of 
suffering  and  sickness  excites  disgust  and  antipathy 
in  the  animal's  breast  rather  than  pity  and  helpful 
love,  man  by  ties  of  compassionate  tenderness  and 
sympathy  feels  drawn  towards  the  ailing  and  grief- 
stricken.  The  appeal  of  the  helpless  and  forsaken 
for  protection  finds  a  resonance  in  the  breast  of  the 
fiercest  savage  to  make  him  cast  aside  his  javelin 
and  boomerang  to  receive  the  suppliant  stranger 
as  brother.  Read  the  inscriptions  on  Egyptian  tombs 
of  5,000  years  ago,  and  you  find  extolled  in  glowing 
praise  the  virtue  of  kindness  to  the  homeless  and 
fatherless.  So  did  the  people  of  Athens  hold  in  high 
esteem  that  liberal-hearted  citizen  of  theirs  who  in 
time  of  want  lavishly  showered  his  bounties  upon 
the  people,  saying:  "I  would  rather  be  poor  than 

*Paper  read  before  the  Jewish  Chautauqua  Assembly,  July  26, 
1903. 


230          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


spend  all  my  possessions  upon  myself."  Also  Rome 
with  her  insatiable  oppressions  and  wars  of  con- 
quests, presents  as  redeeming  features  those  immense 
distributions  of  gold  and  corn  for  the  relief  of  the 
pressing  need  of  the  populace  that  made  it  the  willing 
slave  of  the  wealthy,  not  to  speak  of  the  large  bequests 
made  by  the  emperors  for  the  sheltering  of  waifs 
and  invalid  soldiers.  Nor  can  an  impartial  seeker 
after  truth  afford  to  ignore  the  sweet  and  tender 
lessons  of  sympathy  and  beneficence  uttered  by 
the  Hindoo  prince  Gautama  Buddha,  whose  hundreds 
of  millions  of  adherents  have  for  the  last  twenty-five 
hundred  years  spent  their  best  efforts  upon  alleviating 
the  pain  and  suffering  of  their  fellow-creatures,  and 
who  certainly  were  the  first  in  erecting  hospitals  for 
the  sick.  You  see,  I  am  far  from  claiming  charity 
to  be  an  exclusively  Jewish  virtue.  Nor  do  I  go  to 
Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals  for  the  support  of 
my  view  that  charity  is  simply  a  human  characteristic. 
I  read  it  in  my  Bible,  where  not  only  the  most  ex- 
quisite sentiments  regarding  compassionate  love  for 
human  kinship,  whether  slave  or  stranger,  are  put 
into  the  mouth  of  the  Arabian  shepherd-prince  Job 
(in  Ch.  xxxiv),  but  where  a  heathen  woman,  who 
follows  the  maternal  impulse  of  her  womanly  soul, 
the  Egyptian  princess,  is  introduced  as  the  guardian- 
angel  of  Israel's  greatest  man,  of  Moses  the  law- 
giver. And  yet  I  speak,  without  bias,  of  charity  as 
a  specific  Jewish  imperative.  It  was  the  Jewish  law 
that  made  charity  a  human  obligation.  It  was  the 
genius  of  the  Jewish  people  that  invested  benevolence 
with  the  sense  of  duty  to  render  it  a  divine  command. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  231 

All  the  large-hearted  munificence  bestowed  upon  the 
masses  by  Greek  or  Roman  men  of  wealth  was  at 
best  a  spontaneous  act  of  magnanimity  which 
benefited  the  giver  rather  than  the  receiver;  it 
elevated  the  high  born  who  gave,  and  impoverished 
or  degraded  the  low-born  who  took.  Nor  did  the 
benevolence  taught  by  Buddha  help  and  uplift  the 
down-trodden  and  unfortunate.  In  his  opinion 
life  itself  is  a  misfortune.  In  the  common  misery 
of  existence  there  was  neither  joy  nor  blessing  in  the 
bestowal  of  charity,  and  the  ailing  brute  evoked  tears 
of  sympathy,  or  claimed  a  place  in  the  hospital  as 
much  as  helpless  man.  It  was  the  Jewish  law-giver, 
bard  and  prophet  that  disclosed  the  divine  nature 
of  charity,  giving  it  a  scope  commensurate  with  the 
progress  of  man;  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper 
to  outline  its  history  throughout  the  ages  in  life  and 
literature,  in  laws  and  institutions. 

In  doing  this  I  shall  not  follow  the  traditional 
view  which  regards  as  prime  source  and  factor  of 
Jewish  charity  the  Mosaic  law  enjoining  the  people 
to  leave  the  forgotten  sheaves  and  the  corners  of  the 
field  to  the  poor  widow  and  fatherless.  Such  customs 
rest  upon  unwritten  laws,  before  they  are  embodied 
in  the  code  of  law.  Laws  and  customs  originate  not 
in  the  head  of  priest,  prophet  and  sage,  but  among  an 
approving  multitude  whose  consensus  sanctions  them 
and  gives  them  the  divine  stamp  of  a  higher  origin. 

Thus  the  Bible  gives  us,  so  to  say,  a  photographic 
picture  of  the  way  the  law  of  charity  was  first  spelled 
forth.  The  owners  of  fields,  of  vineyards  and  olive 
trees  are  seen  holding  their  harvests  and  carrying 


232          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

home  wagons  full  of  sheaves  of  wheat,  of  grapes  and 
olives,  while  the  poor,  the  widows  and  fatherless 
look  on  with  hungry  eyes  and  starving  souls.  But 
there  are  a  number  of  sheaves  that  have  been  dropped 
on  the  way,  or  single  grapes  and  olives  still  hanging 
on  the  stalks  or  trees  that  have  been  overlooked, 
and  the  poor  creatures  wait  with  eagerness  for  the 
moment  when  they  may  seize  them  and  eat  them,  or 
carry  them  home  to  their  dear  ones.  As  they  attempt 
to  do  so,  behold,  there  the  heavy  hands  of  the  har- 
vesters fall  upon  them  and  drive  them  off  with  furious 
lashes.  Instantly  one  of  tenderer  soul  steps  forth 
and  stays  his  fellow-harvesters  saying:  It  is  not 
proper  to  deny  one  of  these  pitiable  people  the 
little  privilege  they  claim  in  taking  these  stray  sheaves 
and  single  grapes  and  olives.  And  henceforth  it 
became  customary  among  the  Hebrews  to  leave  the 
stray  sheaves  and  grapes  to  the  needy.  But  we  are 
in  the  position  of  tracing  the  custom  of  leaving  the 
corners  of  the  fields  to  the  poor  still  further.  Among 
the  old  Teutons  the  last  crops  of  the  harvest  were 
altogether  sacred  to  the  god  of  fertility,  and  they 
left  them  untouched  and  burned  them  as  a  sacrifice 
under  many  strange  pagan  rites.  Similar  customs 
have  recently  been  found  also  among  Semitic  tribes. 
The  fact  is  that  individual  ownership  was  in  primi- 
tive times  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  rob  the  gods  of 
their  property  for  which  some  atoning  sacrifice  seemed 
necessary.  How  much  sweeter  and  saner,  then,  was 
the  Hebrew  view  which  consecrated  the  corners  of 
the  field  to  the  poor,  as  the  people  to  be  befriended 
in  the  name  of  God,  the  Giver  of  all  good! 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  233 

Nor  was  this  the  only  way  the  Hebrew  farmers 
learned  to  befriend  the  poor  and  forsaken.  It  being 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  have  the 
poor  as  bystanders  when  the  rich  held  their  harvest 
festivals  amidst  great  rejoicing.  Hebrew  custom  made 
it  a  law  to  invite  the  homeless  and  fatherless  to  par- 
ticipate in  these  feasts  and  gladden  their  hearts  also. 
And  as  during  the  former  shepherd  life,  both  the  first- 
lings and  the  tenth  of  the  yearly  produce  of  the  flocks 
and  the  herds  were  considered  as  holy  to  the  God 
who  opens  the  womb,  so  was  the  tenth  of  the  produce 
of  the  fields  also  sacred  to  God,  not  only  to  be  eaten 
at  the  sanctuary,  but  to  be  shared  with  by,  or  handed 
over  altogether  every  second  or  third  year,  either  to 
the  poor  Levite  or  to  the  stranger,  the  widow  and 
fatherless.  Nor  was  this  all.  As  the  number  seven 
was  a  holy  number  among  all  Semite  tribes  by  which 
covenant  oaths  were  taken,  so  was  the  seventh 
day,  the  seventh  month,  the  seventh  year  and 
the  Jubilee  year,  that  is  the  half  year  following 
the  seven  times  seventh  year,  made  a  season  of  re- 
adjustment of  all  inadequacies  of  social  life,  when 
master  and  servant,  rich  and  poor,  should  be  made 
to  feel  that  all  have  an  equal  claim  upon  life's  gifts. 
And  so  were  these  years  devoted  to  the  supply  of 
the  wants  of  the  poor  by  the  release  of  all  claims 
of  the  rich  upon  landed  property  or  slaves.  The 
underlying  thought  of  all  these  practices  was  dictated 
by  that  spirit  of  charity  so  peculiar  to  the  tender- 
hearted shepherd  race,  the  type  of  which  was  Rebecca 
with  her  compassionate  love  for  the  fatigued  fellow- 
creatures,  man  or  brute,  and  which  resented  as 


234          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

inhuman  the  unkindness  of  a  people  who,  like  Edom 
and  Moab,  would  refuse  passing  caravans  bread  and 
water  out  of  their  store  of  plenty. 

It  is  this  inborn  pastoral  kindness  that  gave  rise 
to  all  these  customs,  before  they  were  embodied  in 
any  code  of  law,  and  it  is  just  because  the  Abraham 
spirit  of  human  tenderness  and  compassion  permeated 
the  prophets,  to  whom  the  shepherd  ideal  of  kindness 
and  simplicity  remained  dear  and  sacred,  that  they 
became  the  God-chosen  champions  of  a  justice  which 
laid  all  the  stress  on  the  rights  and  the  claims  of  the 
poor  and  the  feeble,  as  against  their  wealthy  and 
powerful  oppressors.  It  was  the  unwritten  law 
of  morality  and  custom,  the  ancient  and  deep- 
rooted  practice  of  the  shepherd  race,  ever  anxious 
to  take  care  of  the  suffering  and  famishing  creature, 
to  which  these  matchless  defenders  of  the  down- 
trodden appealed,  when  they  insisted  that  to  serve 
God  is  to  aid  His  pensioners,  the  needy  and  forsaken, 
and  that  the  sight  of  distress  should  be  the  divine 
summons  to  come  to  the  rescue.  Thus  utterance  was 
given  to  the  ethical  view  that  the  naked  found  on  the 
street  has  a  claim  upon  our  garment,  until  he  is 
clothed;  the  hungry  upon  our  bread,  until  his  hunger 
is  stilled;  the  one  exposed  to  storm  and  cold  without 
shelter  upon  our  own  protecting  roof,  until  he  is 
brought  into  safety.  In  other  words,  that  feeling  of 
sympathy  with  those  in  want  which  moves  more 
or  less  every  human  heart,  prompting  it  to  helpfulness, 
has  been  developed  by  the  genius  of  the  Jew,  owing 
to  his  patriarchial  traditions,  into  a  deep  and  firm 
sense  of  duty,  into  a  law  of  social  righteousness,  so 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  235 


that  every  one  who  has,  should  be  impressed  with 
the  feeling  of  responsibility  for  the  weal  and  woe  of 
him  who  has  not. 

And  here  lies  the  essential  difference  between  the 
Mosaic  and  every  other  code  of  law.  Take  that  now 
so  famous  code  of  Hamurabi,  so  interesting  and  so 
instructive  as  being  the  oldest  known  in  history.  It  is 
the  embodiment  of  the  principle  that  might  consti- 
stutes  right.  It  has  no  room  for  helping  love.  Prop- 
erty is  valued,  not  personality.  Man  is  held  in 
bondage  for  every  piece  of  property  not  returned. 
Exactly  the  same  view  is  taken  of  debt  in  ancient 
Roman  law.  Shylock's  pound  of  flesh  is  taken  from 
the  Twelve  Tablets  of  Rome.  It  is  the  Jewish 
law  that  recognizes  the  principle  of  mercy  as  an 
element  of  justice.  It  is  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  who 
is  gracious,  that  the  raiment  given  as  a  pledge  is  to 
be  returned  to  the  owner  when  needed  for  his  personal 
comfort.  "Return  the  pledge  when  the  sun  goes 
down  that  he  (the  poor  who  owns  it)  may  sleep  in 
his  raiment  and  bless  thee,  and  it  shall  be  righteous- 
ness unto  thee  before  the  Lord  thy  God."  The  whole 
relation  of  man  to  man  is  to  be  established  on  mutual 
sympathy  and  forbearance.  Hence  ordinances  occur 
such  as  these:  "If  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor  and 
fallen  in  decay  with  thee,  then  thou  shalt  relieve 
him,  whether  he  be  a  stranger  or  a  sojourner,  that  he 
may  live  with  thee."  During  the  Biblical  time 
they  had  no  organized  system  of  relief,  and  so 
people  in  dire  want  sold  themselves  of  their  own 
accord  as  slaves;  but  then  the  Mosaic  law  urged 
kind  treatment  of  the  victim  of  such  conditions,  and 


236          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

did  everything  to  prevent  such  servitude  as  contra- 
dictory of  the  principles  of  equality  of  men  before 
God.  It  laid  down  two  fundamental  principles  of 
charity.  First,  every  possession  involves  an  obliga- 
tion. God,  as  the  Giver  of  all  blessings,  as  the  actual 
Owner  of  the  land,  claims  certain  portions  of  His 
gifts,  part  of  the  annual  produce,  for  those  in  need. 
"For  the  poor  shall  never  cease  out  of  the  land,  there- 
fore, I  command  thee,  saying:  Thou  shalt  open 
thine  hand  wide  unto  thy  brother,  thy  poor  and  thy 
needy,  in  thy  land."  In  insisting,  therefore,  that 
on  every  occasion  of  joy  and  thanksgiving  for  the 
bounties  of  heaven,  the  poor  should  be  remembered, 
the  law  views  charity  as  a  legal  assessment  of  the 
rich,  and  not  merely  as  a  spontaneous  act  of  generosity 
left  to  individuals  who  may,  and  may  not,  discharge 
their  duty  towards  their  fellow  beings.  Of  course, 
it  still  remains  a  free-will  offering.  R.  Akiba,  when 
asked  by  a  Roman  general:  "Why  does  your  God 
who  loves  the  needy  not  provide  for  their  support 
himself,"  answered,  "God,  the  Father  of  both  rich 
and  poor,  wants  the  one  to  help  the  other,  so  as  to 
make  the  world  a  household  of  love."  And  there  is 
a  second  fundamental  principle  of  charity  expressed 
in  the  law,  and  this  is  that  of  personal  responsibility. 
The  cry  of  the  distressed  is  an  appeal  which  must 
find  a  response  in  the  heart  of  the  fortunate,  or  else 
He  who  executes  the  judgment  of  the  fatherless  and 
the  widow,  will  hear  it  and  punish  those  that  remain 
deaf  to  the  call  of  duty.  The  poor  are  My  people, 
says  God;  they  stand  under  God's  special  protection. 
"He  that  hath  pity  unto  the  poor  lendeth  unto  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  237 

Lord."  It  is  especially  this  view  of  life  which  makes 
the  strong  bear  with  the  weak,  and  the  prosperous 
provide  for  the  unfortunate — a  view  entirely  foreign 
to  pagan  thought  which  changed  the  moral  aspect 
of  the  world.  It  did  not  merely,  as  is  stated  by  Chris- 
tian writers,  render  the  Mosaic  poor  laws  fundamental 
parts  of  the  Christian  State  and  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, but  it  created  that  system  of  organized  charity, 
those  institutions  of  benevolence  to  which  the  Chris- 
tian Church  owes  her  wondrous  triumphs  throughout 
the  centuries,  and  which  existed  in  Jewry  long  before 
the  rise  of  Christianity,  though  not  as  fully  developed 
and  as  richly  endowed  as  they  were,  when  Roman 
opulence  and  power  furnished  the  Church  with  the 
means  to  achieve  her  grand  and  far-reaching  works 
of  redeeming  love. 

It  is  this  chapter  of  Jewish  history  about  which 
the  greatest  errors  prevail,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
Christian  writers  on  the  subject  either  had  no  access 
to  Jewish  sources,  even  if  they  were  free  from  preju- 
dice, or  they  took  no  notice  of  the  Rabbinical  writ- 
ings, taking  it  for  granted  that  it  was  Christianity 
which,  according  to  their  preconceived  notion,  re- 
vealed to  the  world,  the  principle  of  love,  while  Juda- 
ism is  and  ever  was  under  the  bondage  of  the  law, 
from  which  the  New  Testament  Christ  alone  liber- 
ated the  world. 

The  rabbis  have  two  words  for  charity.  The  one 
is  "Zedakah,"  the  practice  of  righteousness  which 
consists  in  the  giving  of  money  to  provide  for  the 
immediate  needs  of  the  poor;  the  other  is  Gemilut 
Hasadim,  the  bestowal  of  kindness  which  includes  the 


238          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


elements  of  personal  helpfulness.  This  again  the  old 
Hasidim,  the  pious  ones  whose  chief  occupation  was  the 
practice  of  charity,  divided  into  seven  or  ten  branches: 
the  feeding  of  the  hungry  and  giving  the  thirsty 
to  drink;  the  clothing  of  the  naked;  the  visiting  of 
the  sick;  the  burying  of  the  dead;  the  ransoming  of 
the  captives;  the  educating  of  the  fatherless,  and 
providing  poor  maidens  with  dowries,  so  as  to  enable 
them  to  marry.  All  those  who  know  something  of 
old  Jewish  life  are  acquainted  with  the  fact  that 
every  large  Jewish  community  had  various  associa- 
tions, fraternities  and  sisterhoods — hebrot — who  de- 
voted their  time  to  these  works  of  benevolence, 
such  as  made  a  specialty  of  one  of  these.  Now  the 
general  belief  is  that  these  associations  or  hebrot 
whose  historic  records  reach  back  only  a  few  hun- 
dred years,  were  called  into  existence  only  during  the 
middle  ages,  and  often  the  assertion  has  been  made 
also  by  Jewish  scholars  that  hospitals  and  asylums 
are  institutions  which  the  Jews  copied  from  their 
Christian  surroundings.  This  is  not  so.  As  early 
as  the  third  century  B.  C.  E.,  Simon  the  Just,  one  of 
the  last  of  the  Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  declared 
that  the  moral  welfare  of  the  world  rests  upon  three 
things;  upon  an  organized  system  of  instruction 
in  the  Law,  upon  organized  worship  and  upon  an 
organized  system  of  charity  and  benevolence.  Wher- 
ever Jews  settled  in  sufficiently  large  numbers — and 
that  was  wherever  commerce  offered  them  oppor- 
tunities, along  the  whole  Mediterranean  Sea,  ever 
since  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great — there  sprang 
up  synagogues  as  centers  of  worship,  of  religious 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  239 


instruction  and  of  practical  charity.  They  were  prob- 
ably built  by  those  devotees  of  piety  and  love,  known 
as  Essenes,  who  traveled  far  and  wide  as  disciples  of 
Moses  and  followers  of  the  example  of  Abraham  and 
other  reputed  saints  of  a  remote  antiquity  in  doing 
the  work  of  love  mercy  to  win  their  fellow-creat- 
ures for  God,  the  universal  Father  whose  ways 
are  mercy  and  kindness.  I  cannot  go  into  detail, 
but  there  are  ample  proofs  given  in  Talmud  and 
Midrash,  showing  how  these  Essene  brother- 
hoods, from  whose  ranks  Jesus  and  his  early  fol- 
lowers emerged,  pursued  and  developed  the  whole 
plan  of  systematic  relief,  which  the  Church  after- 
wards adopted.  In  fact,  it  may  be  stated  without 
fear  of  challenge  that  whatever  was  taught  and 
practised  in  the  New  Testament  circles  by  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  in  regard  to  charity,  has  been  taken  over 
from  Judaism.  Let  me  illustrate  by  two  instances: 
In  Matthew  xxv,  31-46,  the  following  words  are 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus:  "When  the  Son  of 
Man — that  is  the  Messiah — shall  come  in  his  glory 
and  all  the  holy  angels  with  him,  and  he  shall  sit 
upon  the  throne  to  judge  the  people  and  separate 
the  lambs — that  is  the  righteous — from  the  goats, 
placing  the  lambs  to  his  right,  and  the  goats — that 
is  the  unrighteous — to  the  left,  thus  shall  the  Messiah 
say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand:  'Come  ye  blessed 
of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  For  I  was  hungered, 
and  ye  gave  me  meat;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me 
drink.  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in;  naked, 
and  ye  clothed  me;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me; 


240          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  to  release  me.'  Then 
shall  the  righteous  answer  him,  saying:  'Lord,  when 
saw  we  thee  hungered,  and  fed  thee,  or  thirsty,  and 
gave  thee  drink?  When  saw  we  thee  a  stranger,  and 
took  thee  in?  Or  naked,  and  clothed  thee,  or  when  saw 
we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee?'  And 
the  Messiah  shall  answer  and  say  unto  them:  'I 
say  unto  you;  inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one 
of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  .me.  And  so,  vice  versa,  to  the  unrighteous 
who  refused  to  do  these  acts  of  kindness  he  will 
say;  'Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  to  one  of  the  least 
of  these,  ye  did  it  not  to  me.'  '  Now  these  words 
plainly  refer  to  the  various  branches  of  charity  prac- 
tised by  the  Hasidim,  called  the  white  lambs  in  the 
Book  of  Enoch,  in  contradistinction  to  the  goats  that 
are  rejected  on  the  great  Judgment  Day  by  the  Mes- 
siah or  Son  of  Man.  And  the  whole  passage  corre- 
sponds with  a  Midrashic  interpretation  of  the  Psalm 
verse;  "Open  unto  me  the  gates  of  righteousness  that 
I  may  enter,"  according  to  which  he  who  feeds  the 
hungry,  gives  drink  to  the  thirsty,  takes  in  the  strang- 
er, clothes  the  naked  and  ransoms  the  captives  will  see 
the  gates  of  bliss  open  to  him,  because  what  he  does 
to  the  poor  he  does  to  God's  proteges,  and  it  is  as  if 
he  gave  it  to  God  himself.  You  see  how  much  more 
intelligible  and  clear  this  New  Testament  passage 
becomes  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  Jewish  life  and 
thought.  Let  me  refer  you  to  another  characteristic 
saying  attributed  to  Jesus.  "Lay  not  up  for  yourselves 
treasures  upon  earth,  where  moth  and  rust  doth  cro- 
rupt,  and  where  thieves  break  through  and  steal. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY          241 

But  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  heaven,  where 
neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where 
thieves  do  not  break  through,  nor  steal."  The  original 
of  this  rather  obscure  saying  has  been  preserved  for 
us  in  the  following  highly  interesting  story  of  the 
Talmud:  The  son  of  Queen  Helen  of  Adiabene 
became  like  his  more  famous  mother  a  warm  adherent 
of  Judaism,  and  when  famine  had  broken  out  in  Judea, 
both  the  queen  and  her  son  sent  victuals  and  money 
in  great  plenty  to  Jerusalem  for  distribution  among 
the  poor.  For  this  the  king  was  severely  reproached 
by  the  other  princes  of  the  royal  house,  who  said: 
"Thy  royal  fathers  gathered  riches,  and  thou  didst 
spend  them  instead."  Whereupon  the  noble  king  aptly 
replied,  with  reference  to  Biblical  verses:  "My  fathers 
have  gathered  treasures  on  earth;  I  in  heaven.  My 
fathers  have  gathered  treasures  where  thieves  can 
lay  hands  upon  them  and  take  them;  I,  where  no 
man  can  lay  hands  upon  them;  my  fathers  have 
gathered  treasures  that  perish;  I  for  a  world  that 
does  not  perish."  How  much  more  striking  and 
beautiful  is  this  Rabbinic  passage! 

But  the  story  about  the  great  munificence  of  the 
Queen  and  King  of  Abiabene  during  the  Palestine 
famine  furnishes  us  with  very  valuable  information 
concerning  one  point  which  greatly  interests  us  here. 
Josephus  relates  that  the  king  sent  great  sums  of 
money  to  the  foremost  men  of  Jerusalem  for  distri- 
bution among  the  people.  These  foremost  men  were 
none  other  than  the  Gabbae  Zedakah,  the  charity 
administrators  who,  standing  at  the  head  of  the 
community,  had  the  relief  work  in  charge,  for  which 


242 


office  only  the  best  men  and  descendants  of  the 
foremost  families  were  elected  according  to  an  ancient 
Mishnah.  We  have  here  then  the  historical  evidence 
that  organized  charity  is  older  than  Christianity. 

But  we  have  most  accurate  information  about 
the  Jewish  system  of  relief  as  far  back  as  Hillel's 
time;  the  principal  rule  was  that  no  lover  of  God 
should  live  in  a  community  that  has  no  charity 
organization.  The  word  used  for  organized  charity 
is  "Kuppah" — charity  box;— this  contained  the 
funds  for  the  support  of  the  indigent  townsmen,  who 
every  Friday  received  money  for  the  meals  for  the 
whole  week,  besides  clothing,  and  also  of  the  trans- 
ient poor  who  received  as  much  as  was  needed  for 
the  day  and  on  Sabbath  for  three  meals. 

Besides  the  treasury,  they  had  what  we  would  call 
a  soup  kitchen — tamhoi — a  charity  bowl  for  the  keep- 
ing of  victuals  needed  for  immediate  relief.  The 
charity  treasury  was  in  charge  of  three  trustees  who 
decided  on  the  worthiness  of  each  case;  for  profes- 
sional beggars  received,  at  best,  clothing,  but  rarely, 
if  ever,  money,  while  honorable  persons  and  of  good 
family  in  reduced  circumstances  were  supported  in 
accordance  with  their  former  station.  For  the 
collection  of  the  money  two  men  of  the  very  highest 
standing  were  sent  out,  endowed  with  full  power  to 
tax  the  people  and  to  seize  their  property,  until  the 
sum  required  was  given.  In  order  to  avoid  suspicion, 
these  collectors  were  not  allowed  to  separate  while 
collecting  or  holding  the  money.  These  collections 
were  made  weekly.  The  victuals  for  the  tamhoi 
were  collected  and  distributed  for  immediate  use 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  243 


by  three  charity  administrators.  While  regarded  as 
the  greatest  honor,  it  was  also  a  most  delicate  task 
to  be  administrator  of  charity,  because  the  leading 
maxim  was  never  to  put  the  receiver  to  shame. 
Besides,  he  had  to  consider  the  meritoriousness  of 
each  claimant,  and  at  the  same  time  use  caution 
against  impostors.  It  is  quite  characteristic  of  the 
Jewish  sentiment  that  a  woman's  claim  was  considered 
before  that  of  a  man,  and  that  of  the  student  of  the 
law  before  that  of  an  ignorant  man,  though  he  be  of 
high  rank.  Non-Jewish  poor  of  the  city  were  also 
supported  from  the  charity  fund,  while  ill-reputed 
Jews  wrere  not  treated  as  brothers.  Also  the  duty 
of  visiting  the  sick  and  burying  the  dead  was  extended 
to  non-Jews  who  had  none  to  take  care  of  them. 
And  here  we  come  back  to  the  first  and  fundamental 
Jewish  principle  of  charity.  It  is  human  in  character. 
Just  as  Abraham  and  Job,  the  shepherd  sheiks, 
had  the  doors  of  their  tents  opened  on  all  sides  to 
receive  men  of  all  nationality  under  their  hospitable 
roof  according  to  tradition,  so  should  charity  be 
broad,  a  promoter  of  peace  among  men. 

And  here  a  word  or  two  must  be  said  regarding 
another  institution  of  charity.  All  along  it  has  been 
stated  with  apparent  plausibility  that,  just  as  the 
name  hospital  is  Roman,  so  did  also  this  and  similar 
institutions  for  the  reception  of  the  stranger  and  the 
sick  originate  in  Rome  and  among  the  adherents  of 
the  Church.  Thus  says  Lecky  in  his  History  of  Euro- 
pean Morals,  following  older  writers.  The  fact  is 
that  St.  Jerome,  who  was  instrumental  in  the  found- 
ing of  the  first  sick  house  in  Rome  and  of  the  first 


244          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

inn  for  poor  strangers  in  Ostia  through  the  agency  of 
Fabiola,  a  wealthy  Roman  convert  to  Christianity, 
expressly  writes  that  he  is  happy  to  see  "a  branch 
of  Abraham's  terebinth  transplanted  from  the  East." 
That  is  to  say,  he  acknowledges  that  he  is  not  the 
originator,  but  a  mere  follower,  and  in  referring  to 
Abraham  who,  according  to  Rabbinical  tradition, 
built  under  the  oak  at  Hebron  and  the  terebinth 
of  Beersheba,  an  inn  for  strangers — Pandocheion — 
he  implicitly  gives  credit  to  the  Jews  for  having  been 
the  first  hospital  builders.  This  hospice  or  Stranger's 
Inn  was  open  alike  for  the  homeless  and  the  sick  who 
needed  a  shelter.  And  what  was  the  name  given  by 
the  Jews  to  the  sickhouse  and  old  people's  home? 
All  those  here  of  the  older  generation  know  it,  while 
the  real  importance  of  the  name  has  not  been  recog- 
nized by  the  Jewish  scholars.  Hekdesh  is  the  term; 
that  is  a  house  consecrated  to  the  use  of  the  poor 
— a  term  used  by  the  old  Essenes  when  they  took 
their  property  and  gave  it  to  the  poor,  as  was  done 
afterwards  by  the  early  Christians.  So  the  Jew,  and 
not  the  Church,  was  the  first  to  institutionalize 
charity.  The  Essene  was  the  first  who  so  practiced 
love  that  in  his  enthusiastic  altruism  he  disregarded 
self,  and  gave  all  he  had  away. 

And  this  lofty  spirit  of  the  Essenes  was  imbibed 
by  the  early  Christians,  whose  ardor  and  self-denial 
converted  the  large  pagan  world  to  their  faith.  Yes, 
just  as  Abraham  is  pictured  in  the  Midrash  as  having 
won  the  idolaters  that  passed  his  tent  for  the  God  he 
worshiped,  by  the  charity  he  bestowed  on  them  in  his 
tent,  so  did  the  great  Christian  brotherhoods  and  sis- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  245 

terhoods  win  the  heathen  of  the  Roman  empire  for 
their  gospel  of  love  and  hope  by  doing  admirable  and 
unique  service  to  suffering  humanity.  And  no  sooner 
did  the  wealth  and  influence  of  noble-hearted  Roman 
matrons  and  patricians  flow  into  the  channels  of  the 
rising  Church,  than  those  grand  institutions  of  bene- 
volence sprang  up  which  redound  to  the  lasting  glory 
of  Christendom.  No  impartial  reader  can  peruse  that 
chapter  of  Church  history  which  narrates  the  heroic 
zeal  with  which,  all  through  the  middle  ages,  the  great 
fraternities  and  the  sisters  of  mercy  endeavored  to 
alleviate  the  ills  and  sufferings  of  humanity,  without 
paying  homage  to  those  lofty  angelic  souls. 

But  while  giving  the  church  fullest  praise  for  this 
meritorious  work  of  unparalleled  beneficence  and  for 
the  new  impetus  and  inspiration  she  gave  to  the 
world,  we  cannot  exonerate  her  from  the  charge  of 
narrow-minded  exclusiveness  and  want  of  discretion 
and  of  practical  common  sense.  A  spirit  of  monkish 
world-contempt  pervaded  all  her  institutions,  and 
made  the  object  of  charity  not  so  much  the  relief 
of  the  sufferer,  as  the  release  of  the  giver's  soul  from 
the  fires  of  hell.  Lavishly  given  and  thoughtlessly 
squandered  away,  it  did  not  enrich,  but  pauperized 
humanity.  Begging  came  to  be  considered  a  holier 
occupation  than  labor  and  industry.  Did  not  the 
founder  of  Christianity  encourage  this  medieval 
view  by  the  well  known  saying:  "Behold  the  birds 
of  heaven,  they  sow  not,  neither  do  they  reap,  and 
your  heavenly  Father  feedeth  them.  Consider  the 
lilies  of  the  field.  They  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin,  yet  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 


246          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


like  these.  So  be  not  anxious  concerning  your  eating 
and  drinking  and  clothing?" 

Against  such  unhealthy  views  of  life  cherished  by 
the  Essenes  as  well  as  Christians,  the  rabbis  wisely 
remonstrated,  and  as  early  as  the  second  century  they 
decreed  that  no  one  should  give  away  to  the  poor 
more  than  the  fifth  part  of  all  he  had,  and  thus  deprive 
himself  of  the  means  of  self-support  and  self-respect. 
Nay  more,  they  cautioned  against  fostering  beggary 
and  idleness,  and  recommended  the  advancing  of 
money  to  honorable  pursuers  of  a  trade.  "Better 
he  who  lends  money  than  he  who  gives,"  they  say, 
"because  this  encourages  labor  and  dignifies  man." 
In  summing  up  the  maxims  of  the  Talmud,  Mai- 
monides  counts  eight  different  degrees  of  giving 
charity:  The  least  is  he  who  gives  without  good  will; 
better  is  he  who  gives  with  good  will,  though  not  in 
accordance  with  his  means.  Better  again  is  he  who 
gives  adequately,  but  not  without  being  asked; 
higher  ranks  he  who  gives  without  being  asked;  high- 
er again  he  who  gives  without  knowing  the  recipient; 
higher  still  he  who  gives  in  secret,  not  letting  the 
receivers  know  who  their  benefactor  is;  much  higher 
yet  he  who  gives,  not  knowing  who  is  the  recipient, 
nor  letting  the  recipient  know  who  is  the  giver. 
The  highest  of  all  is  he  who  helps  the  poor  along 
the  road  of  self-help  by  advancing  him  money  or 
procuring  for  him  a  lucrative  occupation. 

It  was  this  sensible,  practical,  helpful  charity 
that  was  chiefly  practised  by  the  Jew,  although  his 
heart  was  too  sympathetic  and  tender  to  let  the 
poor  suppliant  pass  his  door  unaided.  The  history 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY          247 


of  Jewish  charity  in  the  middle  ages  has  not  been 
written  as  yet,  and  will  be  difficult  to  write,  since 
most  of  its  pages,  written  with  tears,  have  been  torn 
out  by  the  storms  of  persecution  that  swept  over  the 
head  of  the  Wandering  Jew.  But  what  is  left  in 
scarcely  known  casual,  casuistic  and  ethical  writings 
shows  it  to  have  been  continuous  and  constant, 
watchful,  tender,  yet  wise  care  for  the  needy  by  the 
wealthier  class.  Often  it  was  the  history  of  one  promi- 
nent successful  man  of  enterprise  and  public  spirit 
who  founded  the  eleemosynary  institutions  of  the 
city,  and  at  the  same  time  led  the  whole  community 
from  a  state  of  poverty  and  dependence  by  ways 
of  wise  economy  to  self-help.  A  lover  of  God  and 
man  and  high  in  favor  with  the  rulers  of  State  or 
country,  he,  the  so-called  Shtadlan,  as  a  rule,  promoted 
at  the  same  time  the  cause  of  charity  and  of  educa- 
tion, and  the  various  Hekdeshim — hospitals,  asy- 
lums, or  poorhouses — occasionally  perpetuate  his 
name.  In  most  cases,  charity  was  the  combined  and 
systematized  effort  of  the  well-to-do  and  pious  men 
of  the  community  who,  forming  the  various  brother- 
hoods, made  all,  even  the  poorest,  contribute  their 
mite  to  the  work  of  relief  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
benevolent  institutions.  Throughout  the  medieval 
times,  the  Maaser,  the  tenth  of  the  annual  income, 
was  the  tax  imposed  upon  all,  and  willingly  paid  by 
every  law-abiding  Jew.  Yet  however  great  the  merit 
of  alms-giving  appeared  in  theory  and  tradition, 
one  leading  maxim  preponderated  in  practice,  the 
honor  and  self-respect  as  well  as  the  respectability 
of  the  poorer  classes  were  at  all  events  to  be  main- 


248          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

tained,  and  on  every  Sabbath  Eve  the  indigent  families 
were  remembered  by  the  rich,  besides  receiving  their 
weekly  support  in  money  or  victuals  from  the  charity 
treasury.  As  far  as  we  can  trace  the  history  of  Jewish 
congregations,  we  find  charitable  societies  organized 
for  the  support  and  the  clothing  of  the  poor,  for  the 
education  of  their  children  and  especially  for  the 
nursing  and  training  of  the  fatherless,  for  visiting 
the  sick  and  for  aiding  the  sick  and  the  lying-in- 
women  among  the  poor,  for  dowries  for  poor  maidens, 
for  sheltering  the  aged  and  homeless,  for  ransom- 
ing prisoners  and  for  burying  the  dead,  especially 
giving  free  burial  to  the  poor.  To  become  foster- 
parents  to  the  orphans  was  at  all  times  considered 
the  highest  act  of  charity,  and  therefore  the  founding 
of  orphan  asylums  was  not  as  frequent  among  the 
Jews  as  the  founding  of  poor  and  sick  houses.  While 
institutionalized  charity  is  Jewish  in  origin,  personal 
service,  personal  care  for,  and  personal  interest  in 
the  poor,  ever  remained  the  Leitmotif  of  Jewish 
charity,  which  was  always  a  beautiful  combination 
of  tender  compassion  and  wise  provision  and  help- 
fulness. 

Modern  times  created  new  conditions  and  new 
needs.  First  of  all  the  Reformation,  leaning  towards 
the  far  sounder  and  healthier  Old  Testament  prin- 
ciples of  morals,  gradually  led  to  a  better  compre- 
hension of  the  scope  and  object  of  charity.  Then 
came  the  age  of  reason  with  its  insistence  upon  the 
claims  of  man  and  its  opposition  to  the  exclusive 
narrowness  of  sectarianism,  and  made  philanthropy, 
in  its  broadest  sense,  the  aim  and  standard  of  charity. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  249 

Under,  the  influence  of  this  ruling  idea  of  the  last 
century,  all  benevolent  and  educational  institutions 
were  reorganized  and  remodeled,  and  new  means  and 
methods  of  physical,  moral  and  intellectual  elevation 
and  emancipation  of  the  poor  and  forsaken  were 
created.  No  one  caught  this  spirit  of  broad  philan- 
thropy more  eagerly  than  the  Jew,  and  he  was  quick 
in  lending  to  all  his  eleemosynary  institutions  this 
character  of  broad  humanity,  ingrained  in  his  soul 
from  the  time  of  Abraham. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  the  tendency 
was  to  specialize  the  various  works  and  measures  of 
charity  and,  under  the  supervision  and  auspices  of  the 
Jewish  congregation  or  community,  to  start  special 
societies  for  each.  Homes  for  the  Aged  and  Infirm 
and  for  convalescents,  asylums  for  the  deaf  and 
dumb  as  well  as  for  the  orphans,  homes  for  destitute, 
neglected  and  delinquent  children,  soup  kitchens  and 
similar  organizations  sprang  up  in  Germany,  England, 
France,  and  elsewhere,  under  various  managements. 
To-day  the  cry  is  for  centralization  of  all  communal 
charities,  nay,  for  the  centralization  of  all  relief  work 
in  State  and  country,  in  order  to  prevent  fraud,  mis- 
chief and  pauperization.  But  in  the  same  measure  as 
philanthropy  and  scientific  methods  came  into  play, 
the  religious  character  of  the  work  seemed  to  be 
infringed  upon,  and  its  connection  with  congrega- 
tional life  was  loosened,  if  not  altogether  severed. 
Let  me  not  forget  to  mention  in  this  connection  our 
congregational  sisterhoods,  which  form  a  connecting 
link  between  the  united  relief  work  of  the  community 
and  the  congregation,  while  at  the  same  time  giving 


250          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


the  work  the  ardor  and  enthusiasm  of  religion,  the 
service  of  self-sacrificing  love  and  the  element  of 
personal  friendship  and  sympathy  for  the  needy. 
But  the  age  of  reason  and  cosmopolitan  humani- 
tarianism  has  given  way  to  an  age  of  social  unrest 
and  industrial  strife,  and  the  congested  cities  present 
a  continual  warfare  between  the  masses  and  the 
classes,  between  labor  and  capital,  between  employer 
and  employees.  "We  want  no  charity;  we  want  the 
means  of  getting  a  decent  livelihood,"  is  the  cry  of 
the  many  poverty-stricken  to  the  few  privileged 
ones,  in  whose  hands  the  wealth  of  the  nation  is 
accumulating  with  ever  increasing  power  and  peril. 
Charity  to-day  is  confronted  with  problems  which 
become  ever  graver,  as  the  life  of  society  becomes 
ever  more  complex.  The  old  methods  of  giving, 
especially  those  indulged  in  by  the  Church  which 
offers  bread  in  the  one  hand  and  the  gospel  in  the 
other,  have  been  discarded  and  condemned  as  lower- 
ing the  dignity  of  both  man  and  religion.  All  indi- 
vidual and  sporadic  relief  has  been  found  harmful, 
and  the  cry  is  not  merely  for  a  systematic,  but  above 
all  for  a  scientific  mode  of  charity,  for  a  beneficence 
which  helps  rather  than  gives,  which  uplifts  instead 
of  humiliating,  which  awakens  self-esteem  and 
develops  a  spirit  of  manhood  in  the  beneficiary. 
It  is  on  this  principle  that  not  only  relief  work,  but 
also  our  hospitals  and  homes  for  the  aged,  and  our 
orphan  asylums  and  kindred  institutions  are  being 
rebuilt  and  reshaped.  Charity  is  becoming  more  and 
more  an  integral  part  of  sociology;  it  is  a  study  of 
the  relation  of  man  to  man.  Nay,  more,  it  has 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  JEWISH  CHARITY  251 


ceased  to  be  a  mere  outpouring  of  altruistic  senti- 
ment; it  tends  more  and  more  towards  a  recognition 
of  mutual  interest  and  mutual  responsibility.  All 
these  problems  of  the  age,  all  these  wants  and  woes 
of  the  suffering  and  struggling  masses — "die  Massen- 
Noth,  das  Massen-Elend,"  are  aggravated  in  the 
case  of  the  Jew.  Persecution  and  wholesale  immi- 
gration multiply  the  difficulty  and  increase  the  danger 
of  congested  city  life  a  thousand  fold,  and  the  great 
question  is,  what  about  our  Jewish  charity?  What 
about  our  much-vaunted  Jewish  sympathy  and  the 
Jewish  heart,  when  we  stand  face  to  face  with  thou- 
sands and  tens  of  thousands  of  hapless  beings  who 
appeal  to  us  as  brothers  and  fellow-creatures  for 
relief  from  crying  want.  Does  scientific  charity, 
does  sociology  offer  the  all-sufficient  remedy,  the 
solution  of  the  problem? 

It  seems  to  me  that  my  historical  review  of  Jewish 
charity  is  incomplete  and  of  no  intrinsic  value  whatso- 
ever, if  it  does  not  suggest  an  answer  to  this  most 
vexatious  question  of  to-day.  Yet  I  think  it  does. 
The  Jewish  principle  of  charity  is  in  fullest  harmony 
with  what  is  called  the  science  of  charity.  It  is  so- 
ciological. It  voices  the  law  of  justice.  It  demands 
in  the  name  of  God,  the  Ordainer  of  life,  a  full  share 
of  the  possessions  of  the  fortunate  for  those  defeated 
in  the  race.  It  declares  the  ownership  of  great  wealth 
to  be  a  misappropriation  of  God's  gifts  before  the 
tribunal  of  highest  justice,  unless  it  is  regarded  as  a 
stewardship  for  the  purpose  of  alleviating  in  adequate 
mea&ire  the  wants  of  the  masses.  But  science  is  a 
cold,  calculating  array  of  ciphers  and  dates.  It  lacks 
the  warmth  of  the  heart,  the  power  of  the  emotion, 


252          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

the  joy  of  self-sacrifice  which  the  word  charity  im- 
plies. Jewish  charity  is  that  deep  sense  of  mutual 
responsibility  which  weaves  its  golden  threads  of 
love  and  sympathy  around  individuals  and  com- 
munities, rendering  the  weal  of  the  one  and  the  woe 
of  the  other  the  warp  and  the  woof  in  the  loom  of  the 
social  fabric,  whose  foundation  stones,  taken  from 
God's  throne,  are  justice  and  righteousness.  Yes, 
the  Jewish  question  to-day  is  a  social  question;  it 
is  the  question  of  justice  in  human  society,  and  this 
question  will  not  be  solved  by  running  away,  as  the 
agnostic  here  and  the  Zionist  there  does.  It  will 
be  solved  only,  if  the  Jew  rises  to  the  great  emergency 
of  the  hour  and  becomes  a  high  priest  of  justice,  a 
perfect  type  and  model  of  righteousness;  if  he  realizes 
that  the  very  name  Jew — Jehudah — involves  respon- 
sibility for  all  those  beneath  him  in  the  social  scale, 
first  of  his  own  kind,  and  then  of  all  mankind.  Yes, 
the  Jew  has  ever  been,  and  more  than  ever  before 
he  must  be — the  exponent  and  practiser  of  a  philan- 
thropy rooted  in  justice,  and  the  present  crisis  is  to 
stimulate  the  Jew  to  greater  energy  and  greater 
efforts  toward  charity  and  social  justice.  Of  Abraham 
the  Rabbinical  legend  tells  that  he  wore  a  jewel  on  his 
breast,  by  the  lustre  of  which  he  cured  the  sick  and 
relieved  the  ailing,  and  ere  he  died,  he  hung  it  upon 
the  sky,  saying:  "Let  henceforth  each  who  suffers 
look  up  to  the  orb  of  light,  whence  this  jewel  received 
its  splendor,  and  be  cured."  That  jewel,  methinks, 
was  cosmopolitan  philanthropy,  charity  in  the  garb 
of  righteousness.  May  it  in  undimmed  splendor 
ever  shine  on  the  Jewish  breast,  and  cheer  suffering 
and  struggling  humanity! 


21. 
THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE.* 

MIRACLE  is  the  dearest  child  of  faith.  "Das 
Wunder  ist  des  Glauben's  liebstes  Kind"  is 
a  saying  of  Goethe's.  Miracles,  or  extraordinary 
acts  which  excel  the  skill  and  comprehension  of  man, 
are  everywhere  offered  as  proofs  of  divine  omnipotence 
in  support  of  faith,  yet  as  soon  as  you  accept  them  as 
proofs,  you  cannot  help  feeling  that  you  have  staked 
the  best  and  the  holiest  part  of  faith  on  mere  chance. 
Your  faith  has  not  gained  in  the  least  by  its  mere 
acceptance.  Suppose  the  Egyptian  sorcerers  had 
outstripped  Moses  in  the  art  of  performing  wonders, 
would  the  truth  have  been  on  the  side  of  Egypt  rather 
than  of  Israel?  Each  religion  claims  the  same  mir- 
aculous power  for  its  own  prophets  or  saints.  What 
is  the  difference  between  the  water  of  Lourdes,  by 
which  the  Catholic  religion  in  France  wins  converts 
to-day,  and  the  healing  powers  of  the  Jordan's 
water,  by  which  Elijah  converted  the  Syrian  general 
Naaman  ? 

If  miracles  are  to  testify  to  the  fact  that  Moses 
or  Elijah  were  men  of  God,  then  Jesus,  Mohammed 
and  Buddha  have  equal  claims  to  offer.  As  Moses 
Mendelssohn  wrote  to  Lavater  who  had  challenged 
him  to  either  disprove  Bonnet's  evidences  of  Chris- 

*Lecture  delivered  before  the  Temple  Emanu-El-Bible  Class,  New 
York,  1892. 


254          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


tianity  or  become  a  Christian:  "Miracles  cannot 
prove  the  truth  of  a  religion,  because  every  religion 
has  such  to  present,  and  the  Mosaic  law  expressly 
warns  against  being  misled  by  miracles  performed 
by  false  prophets."  The  Jewish  religion  does  not 
rest  on  belief  in  miracles.  It  rests  on  the  intrinsic 
truth  of  its  laws.  "If  a  prophet  doth  wonders  while 
saying:  'Worship  another  god!'  hearken  not  unto 
him,  for  thy  God  is  testing  thy  belief  in  Him,"  says 
the  Law. 

Consequently  miracles  play  a  subordinate  role 
in  Judaism.  The  rabbis  saw  the  danger  of  placing 
trust  in  miracles,  especially  since  Christianity  was  so 
prolific  in  these  stories,  and  they  deprecated  them, 
laying  all  the  greater  stress  on  the  cosmic  unity  and 
order  established  by  the  Creator  from  the  very  begin- 
ning. 

And  here  is  another  point  which  must  be  empha- 
sized. Every  miracle  is  an  interference  with  the  laws 
of  the  universe,  a  stoppage  of  the  entire  system  of 
creation.  For  a  man  to  restore  a  dead  person  to 
life,  or  to  make  iron  swim  on  the  water's  surface, 
or  to  fly  from  earth  to  heaven,  is  tantamount  to 
allowing,  in  favor  of  a  single  person,  the  suspension 
of  the  entire  machinery  by  which  suns  and  stars, 
the  organic  and  inorganic  lives  of  aeons  are  kept 
rolling  throughout  the  infinitude  of  space  and  time. 
And  what  purpose  would  such  a  temporary  cessation 
of  the  entire  empire  of  law  in  the  universe  serve? 
Can  it  prove  the  omnipotence  of  God?  An  all- 
knowing  and  almighty  Creator  must  provide  for 
every  emergency,  for  every  part  of  the  infinite  world 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE  255 


at  the  very  beginning  of  things.  He  cannot  allow 
breaks  and  interventions  to  lay  bare  the  insufficiency 
of  His  work.  The  order  of  the  Eternal  must  neces- 
sarily suffice  for  all  eternity,  or  else  we  cannot  have 
perfect  trust  in  Him.  Instead  of  confirming  and 
strengthening  our  faith  in  God,  miracles  weaken  it, 
because  they  allow  chance  and  caprice  to  take  the 
place  of  immutable  law  and  order.  In  order  to  avoid 
this  difficulty,  our  ancient  rabbis  in  the  Mishnah 
and  Midrash  declared  that,  at  the  very  creation  of 
the  world,  God  provided  for  these  miraculous  altera- 
tions of  nature  by  preparing  the  conditions  for  such 
contingencies.  Under  usual  circumstances  no  animal 
could  open  its  mouth  to  speak,  but  the  ass  of  Balaam 
was  a  special  work  of  the  Almighty  Creator,  and  so 
was  the  mouth  of  the  earth  that  swallowed  Korah 
in  the  wilderness,  or  the  rock  that  yielded  water  to 
Israel  in  the  desert,  and  so  forth. 

You  see  here  how  the  ancient  sages  of  Israel, 
far  from  insisting  on  a  blind  belief  in  miracles,  en- 
deavored to  harmonize  the  Biblical  stories  with  the 
postulates  of  reason,  with  an  enlightened  faith  in  an 
all-wise  and  all-ruling  Providence.  And  when  the 
great  Jewish  sages  of  the  middle  ages  had  come  into 
contact  with  Arabian  philosophy  and  science,  basing 
the  very  belief  in  God's  unity  upon  the  immutable 
cosmic  order  and  law,  miracle  became  a  problem 
rather  than  a  proof,  a  difficulty  more  than  a  demon- 
stration of  faith.  Nature  as  a  marvelous  unit,  and 
history  as  a  succession  of  mighty  acts  of  Divine 
Providence — these  are  the  miracles  which  manifest 
everywhere  the  omnipresence  and  omnipotence  of 


256          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

God.  Revelation  itself  is  a  miracle,  the  greatest  in 
life.  The  miracle  stories  we  need  lay  no  stress  on. 
This  is  their  mode  of  reasoning.  Spinoza,  in  denying 
the  very  possibility  of  miracles,  only  went  a  step  or 
two  beyond  what  Maimonides  and  others  had  said. 
Our  attitude  as  Jews  to  the  miracles  of  the  Bible 
is,  therefore,  an  altogether  different  one  from  that  of 
the  Christian  believer.  Take  away  the  miracle  of 
resurrection,  of  incarnation  and  transfiguration, 
reduce  Christ  to  human  size  and  his  doings  to  human 
proportions,  and  Christianity  becomes  identical 
with  the  faith  of  the  Jewish  prophets  and  sages,  a 
section  of  Judaism.  Take  away  all  the  miracles  told 
of  Moses  or  Elijah,  of  Joshua  and  Daniel,  and  nothing 
essential  of  the  Jewish  truth  is  infringed  upon.  We 
are,  consequently,  at  liberty  to  treat  miracles,  like 
any  other  form  of  belief,  from  a  general  human  point 
of  view.  We  are  not  bound  to  believe  that  the  serpent 
in  Paradise  spoke,  or  that  the  diversity  of  human 
speech  originated  in  the  confusion  of  men's  language 
at  the  Tower  of  Babel.  We  know  that  the  Bible 
contains  legends  which  present  truth  in  the  form  of 
fiction.  We  do  not  for  a  moment  accept  the  story 
as  a  fact  that  the  Dead  Sea  owes  its  origin  to  the 
wrath  of  divine  justice  which  visited  the  people  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrha  with  an  earthquake;  or  that 
the  wife  of  Lot  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt,  because 
she  stopped  in  her  flight  to  look  back.  On  the 
contrary,  the  pillar  of  salt,  still  seen  in  one  corner  of 
the  lake,  because  it  is  forming  ever  anew,  gave  rise 
to  a  popular  tale  concerning  Lot's  wife,  and  the  awful 
sight  of  a  dreary  and  desolate  land  covered  with  salt 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE  257 


and  brimstone  suggested  the  story  of  wicked  in- 
habitants who  had  provoked  the  anger  of  God. 
Where  science  asks  for  natural  causes,  the  narrator 
of  the  Bible  looks  for  ethical  motives.  In  like  manner 
the  Bible  stories  invest  every  occurrence  in  nature 
or  in  history  with  a  religious  significance. 

We  strike  here  upon  the  very  nature  of  miracles. 
They  turn  every  fact  in  the  life  of  the  man  or  the  nation 
they  dwell  on  into  a  lesson,  a  symbol  of  some  religious 
truth.  Miracles  do  not  create,  but  illustrate,  faith. 
They  are  the  efflorescence,  not  the  root,  the  beauti- 
ful blossom,  not  the  nourishing  sap,  of  belief.  Every 
bright  day  begins  with  the  charm  of  a  beautiful 
sunrise.  So  does  poetry  in  every  nation  precede  the 
real  facts  of  history  and  philosophy.  Miracles  are 
the  poetry  of  religion,  the  garb  in  which  the  religious 
truth  is  presented  to,  or  received  by,  the  childhood 
of  humanity. 

The  child  likes  to  indulge  in  dreams,  in  fanciful 
stories,  in  fairy  tales.  Its  imagination,  defying  the 
limits  of  real  life,  delights  in  soaring  in  the  boundless 
realm  of  the  ideal.  It  sees  the  world  not  as  it  is, 
but  as  it  should  be,  or  might  be.  And  behold,  life 
appears  impregnated  with  moral  purposes,  and  in  the 
great  contest  the  good  always  triumphs,  and  the 
evil  is  crushed;  for  God  does  what  He  pleases.  His 
resources  to  help  the  just  and  to  punish  the  evil- 
doer are  unlimited.  In  this  stage  of  human  concep- 
tion miracles  rise  and  spread.  They  are  neither 
invented  nor  distorted  facts,  but  popular  traditions 
which  reflect  more  or  less  dimly  some  historical 
reminiscence,  but  always  viewed  in  the  light  of  an 


258          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

inner  religious  experience.  You  must  be  in  sympathy 
with  the  faith  that  created  the  miracle,  in  order  to 
appreciate  its  truth.  Unless  you  can  enjoy  the  beauty 
of  the  rainbow,  you  fail  to  see  in  it  more  than  a  re- 
flection of  the  sun.  .Only  a  poetic  age  could  behold 
in  it  the  ark  of  heaven  suspended  as  a  sign  of  peace 
after  the  storm  and  uproar  of  nature. 

This  sense  for  the  beautiful  the  rationalist  lacks 
who  reduces  the  Biblical  miracle  to  a  natural  occur- 
rence, holdingfor  instance,  that  Israel's  passage  through 
the  Red  Sea  followed  by  destruction  of  Pharaoh's 
hosts  was  due  to  a  temporary  ebb  and  flood  which 
Moses  had  taken  into  account,  but  not  Pharaoh ; 
or  that  the  downfall  of  Jericho's  walls  was  caused 
by  some  stratagem  of  Joshua  effecting  their  under- 
mining. In  a  similar  manner  some  would  explain 
the  grand  act  of  Divine  Revelation  on  Mount  Sinai 
by  referring  to  the  deep  and  multifarious  resonance 
heard  there  at  times,  owing  to  falling  sand,  and  the 
mighty  echo  of  Moses  thus  produced,  they  would 
say,  could  really  be  ascribed  to  God  on  high.  All  these 
rationalistic  explanations,  which  deprive  Biblical 
history  of  its  poetic  charm,  are  not  only  extremely 
silly  in  themselves,  but  they  represent  the  great 
prophets  of  Israel  as  jugglers  and  impostors,  and  God 
himself  as  aiding  or  instructing  in  the  art  of  trickery 
and  deceit.  In  order  to  save  the  literal  truth,  they 
kill  the  very  spirit  of  faith. 

Let  me,  before  proceeding  to  offer  a  better  explana- 
tion, ask  you:  Why  do  miracles  still  gain  currency 
in  certain  districts  in  Southern  France  and  Italy 
and  not  among  cultured  people?  Simply  because 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE  259 

there  they  are  expected  and  regarded  as  possible, 
whereas  people,  trained  to  behold  in  nature  an  un- 
broken reign  of  law,  look  only  for  natural  explana- 
tions of  whatever  occurs.  We  know  what  life  and 
death,  health  and  disease  are,  and  we  understood 
the  law  long  before  Harvey  discovered  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood,  and  before  the  microscope  dis- 
closed to  us  microbic  germs  of  disease.  Consequently 
we  do  not  expect  to  be  cured  of  leprosy  or  of  blind- 
ness by  some  supernatural  influence.  But  people 
who  ascribe  illness  to  evil  spirits  taking  possession 
of  man  find  no  difficulty  in  using  charms  and  magic 
formulas  to  drive  off  the  malign  influences.  Here  you 
have  the  key  to  all  the  New  Testament  miracles. 
Resurrection  of  the  dead  is  for  reasoning  people 
to-day  scarcely  thinkable.  We  see  the  body  lapse 
into  dissolution,  the  moment  the  clockwork  of  life 
stops.  But  I  remember  as  a  child  to  have  freely 
cherished  the  belief  that  during  sleep  at  night  the 
soul  goes  up  to  heaven  to  return  in  the  morning. 
Then  it  was  quite  natural  for  me  to  expect  that,  when 
my  body  goes  to  its  eternal  sleep,  the  soul  will  wait 
in  heaven  for  the  summons  of  God  to  enter  the  body 
imbedded  in  the  soil. 

For  us  who  know  how  by  the  unfailing  law  of 
gravitation  sun,  earth,  moon  and  stars  rotate  around 
each  other  along  the  heavens,  it  is  simply  impossible 
to  imagine  that  at  Joshua's  bidding  the  sun  should 
have  stood  still  in  his  course  one  day.  Shall  I  tell 
you  what  the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun  was  to 
the  ancient  mind?  A  picture  found  on  one  of  the 
temple  gates  of  Nineveh  shows  heavenly  spirits 


260          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


pulling  a  mighty  rope  by  which  the  gates  of  the 
eastern  horizon  are  opened,  and  the  brilliant  orb 
of  day  is  let  in  in  the  morning  and  let  out  in  the  even- 
ing. How  easy  then  for  Joshua  by  his  divine  power 
for  once  to  stop  the  heavenly  spirits  in  their  work  of 
pulling  the  ropes  of  the  sun,  or  of  driving  this  golden 
chariot  along  the  sky! 

We  to-day  see  in  rain  and  storm,  hail  or  snow, 
lightning  or  earthquake  the  unceasing  work  of  one 
will  and  mind  governing  the  universe.  For  us  a  break 
means  return  to  chaos.  But  for  those  who  believed 
that  there  were,  as  Job  has  it,  "storehouses  of  rain  and 
dew,  of  snow  and  hail  in  heaven  waiting  for  God  to 
unlock  them  and  send  them  down  ever  anew,  either 
for  the  weal  or  for  the  woe  of  the  land,"  every  shower 
of  rain  and  every  draught  was  a  special  act  or  inter- 
ference of  God.  Hence  it  was  perfectly  in  His  power 
to  alter  the  course  of  things  in  favor  of  one  land  and 
against  the  interest  of  another. 

But  on  entering  into  the  psychology  of  the  Bib- 
lical miracles,  we  must  analyze  also  their  forms  and 
contents  and  find  their  historical  and  local  connec- 
tions. Without  a  study  of  the  land  and  the  beliefs 
of  Egypt  and  of  the  Sinai  peninsula  and  their  history, 
we  are  at  a  loss  to  explain  the  wonders  of  the  Exo- 
dus and  of  Israel's  sojourn  in  the  wilderness. 

Most  people  forget  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  cate- 
chism with  fixed  definitions  of  God  and  soul.  It  is 
a  nation's  history  and  poetry.  It  shows  religion  in 
the  state  of  evolution.  The  truth  is  seen  there  growing 
and  maturing,  but  not  finished  and  perfect.  Of  course, 
when  we  speak  of  Divine  Revelation,  we  cannot  help 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE  261 


thinking  of  the  spirit  of  man  communing  with  the 
Spirit  of  the  universe  by  means  of  profound  medita- 
tion, or  by  some  other  flight  of  the  soul  aspiring  to  the 
highest  and  loftiest.  The  fire  in  which  God  appears 
to  Moses  in  the  bush,  or  the  thunder  and  lightning 
in  which  God  reveals  Himself  to  the  people  of  Israel 
on  Mount  Sinai  simply  puzzle  and  perplex  us.  How 
can  we  harmonize  the  spirituality  or  omnipresence 
of  God  with  His  coming  down  to  some  earthly  lo- 
cality? But  the  matter  becomes  still  more  puzzling 
when  we  read  how,  before  announcing  the  ten  plagues 
to  Pharaoh,  God  gives  Moses  instruction  in  the  art 
of  turning  a  staff  into  a  serpent  and  water  into  blood, 
and  similar  magic.  Nor  is  the  story  of  -the  ten  plagues 
and  particularly  the  last  one,  the  death  of  the  first- 
born, with  the  anterior  command  to  Israel  to  borrow 
gold  and  silver  vessels  from  the  Egyptians  before 
their  departure,  in  accord  with  our  conception  of 
God.  A  philosophical  debate  between  Moses  and  the 
wise  men  of  Egypt  would  have  appeared  to  us  as  a 
far  more  appropriate  introduction  to  the  new  religious 
truth  disclosed  on  Sinai.  Instead  of  this,  the  Bible 
unrolls  before  us  a  mighty  warfare  between  the  gods 
of  Egypt  and  the  lofty  God  of  Sinai.  It  is  a  strange 
contest  between  a  simple  deity  of  a  shepherd  tribe  and 
the  numerous  gods  that  created  the  highest  civilization 
then  reached  by  man.  It  has  been  said  by  Jewish 
writers  of  old  and  repeated  in  the  New  Testament  that 
Moses  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  Egypt.  The 
Scriptures  tell  nothing  of  the  kind.  On  the  contrary, 
Moses'  faith  conquered  the  world  by  its  very  simplicity 
while  Egypt's  religion,  like  all  polytheism,  defeated 
the  truth  by  its  complicated  multiplicity. 


262          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Now  what  is  a  simple  faith?  Not  a  god  so  remote 
from  human  life  that  only  philosophers  can  think 
him  out,  but  a  God  who  is  near  to  every  one,  and  who 
helps  whenever  He  is  called  upon.  This  is  exactly 
the  meaning  of  Jahveh:  Ehyeh  asher  Ehyeh.  Such 
a  god  cannot  be  invented.  He  must  have  been 
known  as  the  God  of  the  fathers.  He  must  have 
been  worshiped  for  generations  right  there,  where  He 
first  appeared  to  Moses.  Indeed,  Mount  Sinai  was 
the  hill  of  God,  a  place  of  pilgrimage,  long  before 
Moses'  time — perhaps  a  thousand  years. 

Heavenward  we  gaze  when  we  long  for  the  Infinite. 
How  natural,  then,  for  the  shepherd  to  find  his  God 
dwelling  on  lofty  heights,  unseen,  yet  giving  signs 
of  His  presence  in  fire  and  whirlwind!  How  much 
grander  is  the  Lord  of  the  heavenly  hosts  and  of  the 
vast  desert  than  all  the  gods  enshrined  in  the  Egyp- 
tian temples!  The  ten  plagues  are  climatic  phenomena 
of  Egypt  put  into  dramatic  form.  They  all  come  from 
the  surrounding  desert:  the  hot  wind  that  blinds  the 
eyes,  the  insects  and  impurities  that  fill  the  air  with 
germs  of  disease  and  pestilence,  the  earth  that  red- 
dens the  waters  of  the  Nile.  How  powerless  are  the 
gods  and  the  men  of  Egypt  against  the  Ruler  of  the 
free  and  vast  desert! 

We  know  from  the  Egyptian  monuments  that  the 
Hebrews  who  resided  in  Goshen,  the  border-land  of 
the  wilderness,  worshiped  the  god  of  life,  using  as  his 
image  a  bald-headed  serpent,  attended  by  two 
priestesses.  We  understand  thus  why  Moses  started 
on  his  great  mission  with  the  sign  of  the  serpent. 
Not  the  serpent  with  his  two  priestesses,  who  could 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  BIBLE  263 

not  give  you  back  your  freedom,  I  proclaim  to  you 
as  God.  No,  says  he,  the  God  of  Sinai,  He  shall  re- 
deem you,  and  Him  shall  you  worship  with  the  very 
silver  and  gold  vessels  borrowed  from  your  masters. 
He,  the  Ruler  of  the  heavens,  will  smite  the  gods  of 
Egypt  and  set  you  free.  He  will  avenge  on  Pharaoh 
the  death  of  Israel's  children,  His  first-born,  by  killing 
the  first-born  of  Egypt.  Nay,  more.  Exactly  as 
Jahveh  in  ancient  poetry  appears  in  fire-clouds 
when  combating  with  Rahab,  the  power  of  darkness, 
or  the  great  serpent  of  night,  so  does  He  pursue  the 
mighty  host  of  Pharaoh  or  Egypt,  the  great  serpent, 
until  they  sink  into  the  deep.  To  His  ransomed 
ones,  the  people  of  Israel,  however,  He  appears  on 
Sinai  in  the  garb  of  His  glory,  to  reveal  to  them  His 
law  and  consecrate  them  to  be  His  priests  forever. 

On  the  Sinai  peninsula  there  falls  every  year  in 
spring  the  Manna  sap  in  white  globules  upon  the 
ground,  and  the  Bedouins  call  this  sweet  juice 
Mann  Essamma — gift  of  heaven.  Some  call  it 
"angel's  bread."  Who  else  but  the  Ruler  of  the 
desert,  the  great  Jahveh,  could  have  offered  this  as 
food  to  His  people?  Annually  at  the  very  same  time 
large  flights  of  quails  are  seen  coming  to  nestle  there, 
and  they  say  that  the  sun-god  awakens  from  his  slum- 
ber at  their  arrival.  This,  too,  then,  and  the  water 
that  flows  out  of  the  dry  rock,  are  gifts  of  Jahveh, 
the  God  of  Sinai. 

Likewise  is  the  whole  story  of  the  conquest  by 
Joshua  and  the  wondrous  battle  fought  by  Elijah 
nothing  but  the  poetic  conception  of  the  warfare  of 
Sinai's  God  who  has  storm,  fire  and  whirlwind  at 


264          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

His  command,  against  the  giants  and  the  gods  of 
Canaan.  "Jahveh  is  the  great  God  who  gives  rain 
and  withholds  it  at  his  pleasure,  not  Baal!"  This  is 
the  grand  truth  expressed  in  the  miraculous  contest 
carried  on  by  Elijah  on  Mount  Carmel  against  Jeze- 
bel's prophets  of  Baal.  The  God  of  Sinai  is  a  de- 
vouring fire  to  annihilate  all  injustice  and  wrong,  and 
a  pillar  of  light  to  lead  the  righteous  to  the  land  of 
promise.  Even  on  the  last  day  of  judgment  God  will 
judge  the  world  by  fire  of  righteousness  and  purify 
man  like  silver  and  gold  in  the  furnace,  before  the 
universal  reign  of  peace  will  unite  all  His  children. 
Think  of  Elijah's  last  moments  on  earth!  He  was 
seen  by  his  pupil  Elisha  riding  upon  a  chariot  of 
fire  drawn  by  fiery  horses  to  heaven.  Was  this  not 
originally  the  fiery  cherub  on  which  Israel's  God 
Jahveh  rode  along  the  sky?  But  the  idea  of  God  had 
become  too  sublime  to  allow  such  mythical  forms  to 
be  attached  any  longer  to  Him.  The  chariot  therefore, 
fell  to  the  lot  of  the  prophet.  But  it  still  symbolized 
that  wrath  of  God  against  an  idolatrous  nation  of  which 
the  whole  life  of  Elijah  was  an  embodiment.  The  God 
of  Isaiah  dwelt  no  longer  on  Sinai.  His  residence  is 
the  heaven  above,  and  even  there  He  is  no  longer  seen, 
not  even  by  the  angelic  beings  that  surround  him. 
Henceforth  the  world  of  miracles  ceases.  All  the  more 
is  the  past  invested  with  the  miraculous.  The  be- 
ginnings of  history,  the  very  origin  of  the  nation, 
become  a  succession  of  wonders.  Did  God  then  re- 
cede from  the  lives  of  men?  Was  the  wondrous 
working  arm  of  God  no  longer  with  the  Jew?  The 
priestly  Sadducees,  the  worldly  Jews,  said :  No.  The 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  -THE  BIBLE     .-,. \         265 

pious  ones  in  their  tribulations  and  trials  protested,, 
and  so  the  miraculous  story  of  Daniel  came  forth  as  a 
testimony  that  the  God  of  Israel  was  still  near  and 
ready  to  save  in  a  miraculous  way  from  the  fire  of 
the  persecutor  and  from  the  claws  of  lions.  >-lrL^  } 

Taken  altogether,  the  Biblical  miracles  offer 
sublime  truths  in  child-like  form.  They  illustrate 
in  symbolical  language  the  ideas  of  Divine  Justice 
and  of  benign  Providence.  As  long  as  the  human 
heart  remains  young  and  eager  to  listen  to  eternal 
truths  in  parable,  the  Bible  with  its  miracle  tales  will 
remain  mankind's  indestructible  picture-book.  It 
is  not  a  text-book  of  history,  nor  of  philosophy.  It 
is  all  poetry,  which  is  often  the  sublimest  truth, 
as  every  ideal  world  is  loftier  than  the  real.  For, 
after  all,  is  the  heart  not  a  more  potent  factor  of 
humanity  than  the  intellect?  Is  not  emotion  a  strong- 
er power  than  cold  reflection?  Behind  all  reason,  all 
knowledge  and  skill,  lies  the  power  of  faith  which 
moves  mountains,  which  performs  wonders.  Faith 
in  God  and  the  divine  forces  within  us  achieves  the 
best  things  and  the  greatest  in  life.  There  is  a  saving 
power  in  faith  at  which  all  miracles  hint.  Faith 
makes  prophets,  heroes,  artists,  explorers  and  dis- 
coverers. One  with  God,  we  are  all-powerful ;  without 
God,  we  are  pigmies.  Greater  than  the  miracle  of 
the  Red  Sea  is  the  wonder  of  Divine  Providence 
seen  in  our  every  day  life,  say  the  rabbis.  Our  age 
of  enterprising  self-reliance  and  of  iron  machinery 
repudiates  miracles,  and  justly  so.  All  the  more  we 
must  needs  learn  how  to  behold  in  the  entire  life  of 
the  universe  a  complex  of  wonders,  one  great  miracle 


266          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


of  divine  forethought  before  which  we  should  stand 
in  holy  awe,  realizing  the  sway  of  a  divine  power 
by  which  man  imbues  life  with  holy  purposes  and 
lofty  ideals,  the  rule  of  a  God  whose  truth  triumphs 
in  the  end.  Amen. 


22. 
THE  NEW  BIBLE  TRANSLATION.* 

THIS  is,  indeed,  a  memorable  event  in  the  history 
of  American  Judaism  which  we  are  celebrating. 
We  greatly  appreciate  the  honor  you,  our  honored 
hosts  and  friends,  bestow  upon  us  to-night,  in  view 
of  the  work  we  have  done.  But  it  is  only  with  your 
generous  aid  that  we  shall  succeed  in  rendering  the 
Bible,  whose  translation  we  have  finished,  a  welcome 
boon  and  a  valued  household  treasure  in  every  Jewish 
home  in  America. 

All  the  great  Bible  translations  made  throughout 
the  lands  and  the  ages  marked  a  new  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  Jew,  or  the  world  at  large,  whether 
we  think  of  Mendelssohn's  work,  so  instrumental  in 
breaking  down  the  Ghetto  walls  for  the  modern  Jew, 
or  the  Greek  translation  in  Alexandria,  which  in- 
augurated a  new  era  for  Jew  and  Gentile  by  the  blend- 
ing of  the  beauty  of  Hellenic  culture  with  the  lofty 
spirit  of  the  Hebrew's  faith,  or  whether  we  have  in 
mind  Luther's  Bible  and  the  King  James'  Version 
which  worked  as  liberators  of  the  mind  of  Germany 
here,  of  England  there.  In  the  seventy  languages 
of  the  seventy  nations  of  the  globe  should  the  words 
of  God  be  written,  in  order  that  all  may  learn  the 

*Spoken  at  the  dinner  given  in  New  York  in  honor  of  the  Editor- 
ial Board  of  the  new  Bible  Translation,  February  10,  1914. 


268          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

truth  of  God's  Fatherhood  and  man's  brotherhood, 
say  our  rabbis.  The  Book  of  Books  should  be  in 
the  hands  of  all,  monitor  and  comforter  of  high  and 
low,  the  educator  of  mankind,  the  unifier  of  men, 
the  greatest  democratizing  power  of  humanity. 

In  this  spirit  have  we  been  wofking  together  to 
bring  the  Bible  within  easy  reach  of  the  highest 
and  lowliest,  man,  Woman  and  child,  hoping  and 
trusting  that,  like  the  great  Christian  Bible  Societies, 
we,  too,  would  succeed  in  getting  millions  at  our  dis- 
posal for  the  sacred  cause. 

Now  at  first  blush,  I  was  rather  embarrassed  and 
puzzled  when  seeing  the  subject  assigned  to  me; 
"The  Bible  for  the  Student."  Why,  it  is  a  Bible  for 
the  People  that  we  wanted  to  create.  We  live  in  an 
age  when  the  scholar  in  his  study  or  the  scientist 
in  his  laboratory  is  expected  to  place  his  best  faculties 
and  energies  at  the  service  of  common  humanity. 
How  much  more  so  the  student  of  the  Bible,  which 
is  the  holiest  concern  of  all! 

On  closer  reflection,  however,  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  I  should  speak  on  my  subject  by  way  of 
contrast. 

You  all  probably  know  that  for  the  student  the 
Scriptural  words  have  different  meanings  according 
to  the  standpoint  of  each.  The  medieval  rabbis 
speak  of  four  different  methods  of  interpretation 
to  bring  out  either  the  simple  or  the  symbolic,  the 
homiletic  (that  is  Halakic  or  Haggadic)  or  mystic 
sense.  The  older  sages  speak  of  49  different  methods. 
Yes,  just  as  the  diamond  reflects  its  brilliancy  in 
dozens  of  facets  flashing  forth  light  in  many  direc- 


269 


tions,  so  has  the  Torah  49  faces  of  the  truth  to  offer 
to  the  student.  Yet  beneath  all  these  the  simple 
meaning  must  ever  remain  as  the  basic  one  appealing 
to  all. 

Thus  the  theological  students  of  the  various 
schools  differ  as  to  concept  or  interpretation  of 
Scripture;  in  regard  to  the  plain  text  we  all,  conserva- 
tive or  liberal,  agree.  As  students  we  had  our  heated 
controversies,  our  sore  defeats  and  proud  victories 
each ;  as  workers  at  a  Bible  for  the  people  we  were  ready 
for  a  compromise  and  become  all  of  one  accord. 

Another  important  consideration  for  the  student 
is  the  Hebrew  text  itself,  concerning  which  ancient 
tradition  records  many  variations.  And  these  have 
been  greatly  increased  in  number  and  in  significance, 
since  we  have  learned  to  compare  the  ancient  ver- 
sions with  our  Masoretic  text,  not  to  speak  of  the 
independent  text  criticism  of  modern  days.  Many  a 
student,  even  among  the  conservatives,  keeps  in  his 
closet  a  Bible  edition  interleaved,  noting  his  emenda- 
tions of  the  text,  which  are  greatly  at  variance  with 
those  of  his  fellow-workers.  Now  over  against  these 
varieties  of  the  Bible  text  or  its  translations,  which 
disfigure  the  sacred  Scripture  by  lacunae,  asterisks 
or  interrogation  points,  and  occasionally  by  the 
transposition  of  entire  verses  and  chapters,  however 
legitimate  in  themselves,  or  sanctioned  by  ancient 
practice,  the  Bible  for  the  People  must  leave  the  Masor- 
etic text  intact,  in  order  to  manifest  profound  regard 
for  the  venerable  authority  of  the  Book  of  Books, 
of  which  we  cannot  afford  to  offer  57  varieties.  This 
was  one  of  the  principles  which  guided  us  in  our 
translation. 


270          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Again,  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  each  student 
has  a  certain  predilection  in  regard  to  the  words 
he  uses  or  the  explanation  of  Scriptural  terms. 
When,  accordingly,  following  the  plan  pursued  by  the 
former  Board  of  Bible  Editors,  consisting  of  the  late 
Dr.  Jastrow,  Dr.  De  Sola  Mendes  and  myself,  the 
various  books  of  the  Bible  were  assigned  to  different 
translators,  there  was  evidently  too  much  individual- 
ism shown  in  the  rendering  of  each  book,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  uniformity  and  harmony  of  the  whole. 
It  was,  therefore,  a  wise  step  taken  by  our  Board  of 
Editors  in  following  as  closely  as  possible  the  standard 
of  the  Authorized  Version,  thereby  to  preserve  the 
classical  English  diction  with  all  the  vigor  and 
rhythmic  beauty  which  only  the  inspiration  of  genius 
could  produce,  and  at  the  same  time  to  safeguard  the 
uniformity  of  the  translation.  As  students  we  might 
have  displayed  in  many  instances  greater  originality; 
as  workers  at  a  Bible  for  the  People,  we  gladly  yielded 
in  favor  of  a  translation  which  created  the  God- 
fearing, liberty-loving  race  of  men  that  made  England 
and  North  America  what  they  are.  In  one  respect 
however,  we  approach  our  work  as  students  equipped 
with  the  ammunition  of  modern  research.  Just  as 
the  Revised  Version,  the  work  of  modern  English 
and  American  scholars,  represents,  aside  from  a  few 
Christological  features  that  have  still  been  left  here 
and  there,  the  advanced  scientific  character  of  modern 
Biblical  exegesis,  so  does  our  translation,  the  result 
of  independent  studies  with  especial  consultation 
also  of  Jewish  tradition  and  Jewish  authorities,  offer 
to  the  Jewish  world  the  Scriptures  in  modern  English 


THE  NEW  BIBLE  TRANSLATION  271 

upon  a  thorough  scientific  basis,  free  from  any  sec- 
tarianism or  any  Jewish  bias.  It  is  a  Jewish  Bible 
only  in  so  far  as  it  takes  cognizance  of  the  Synagogue 
usage  regarding  the  order  of  books  and  the  divisions 
of  the  Pentateuchal  Sabbath  portions  and  their 
Hebrew  nomenclatures.  Aside  from  this,  it  presents 
itself  as  the  translation  of  the  Scripture  pure  and  sim- 
ple, and  we  confidently  expect  that  non- Jewish 
scholars  will  use  it  with  profit  in  future  revisions  of 
their  own  versions,  since  as  Jewish  students  we  fre- 
quently succeeded  in  penetrating  deeper  into  the 
spirit  of  the  Hebrew  original  than  did  translators 
less  conversant  with  the  Hebrew  diction. 

Thus  our  work  is  truly  a  peace-offering  to  both 
the  Jewish  and  the  non-Jewish  world.  Being  the  result 
of  harmonious  co-operation  between  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  two  wings  of  American  Judaism,  the 
Conservative  and  the  Reform  wing,  it  will,  we  hope 
and  trust,  form  a  bond  of  union  between  all  the 
branches  and  divisions  of  American  Israel,  to  bring 
about  a  greater  consolidation  of  its  spiritual  interests, 
and  at  the  same  time  serve  as  a  link  to  entwine  us 
also  with  our  God-seeking  non-Jewish  brethren 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world.  Yes,  as 
Jewish  students  we  are  mindful  of  the  word  of  our 
sages:  "The  disciples  of  the  wise  will  increase  the 
world's  peace,  for  it  is  said,  All  thy  children  will  be 
taught  of  God,  and  great  shall  then  be  the  peace 
of  thy  children,  the  up-builders  of  the  divine  king- 
dom of  truth." 


23. 
WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM.* 

WOMAN'S  social  position  has  often  been  called 
the  barometer  of  civilization.  Her  state  of 
subjection  or  of  freedom  indicates  the  degree  of  cul- 
ture which  a  people  or  an  age  has  attained.  But  there 
are  two  different  aspects  of  the  question.  Liberty 
of  the  individual  is  one;  the  purity  and  welfare  of 
the  home  is  another.  Occidental  life  lays  more 
stress  on  the  former,  Oriental  life  on  the  latter.  No 
doubt,  the  ancient  civilization  of  the  world  produced 
a  higher  standard  of  beauty,  but  did  morality  hold 
pace  with  its  progress?  One  of  the  saddest  impres- 
sions made  by  Greek  history  is  that  the  advance  of  its 
culture  marked  the  decline  of  virtue.  The  beautiful 
types  of  women  of  the  Homeric  age,  such  as  An- 
dromache and  Penelope,  are  looked  for  in  vain  among 
the  enlightened  people  of  Athens.  Still  greater  was 
the  fall  of  woman  in  Rome.  Beginning  with  the 
lofty  spirit  of  a  Cornelia,  she  sinks  to  the  level  of  a 
Messalina. 

The  Jew  offered  the  world  a  new  and  higher  stand- 
ard of  morality — the  principle  of  holiness.  Just  as 
light  is  born  out  of  darkness,  so  was  the  conception 
of  a  God  of  holiness,  who  abhors  everything  impure, 
born  out  of  the  contest  against  the  abominable 

*Address  delivered  before  the  Cincinnati  Section  of  the  Council 
of  Jewish  Women,  in  1906. 


274          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Semitic  idol-worship.  The  pure  monotheistic  faith 
of  the  Jew  is  the  efflorescence  and  fruitage  of  his 
pure  moral  sentiment  and  his  domestic  virtue.  The 
shocking  immoralities  perpetrated  at  the  shrine  of 
the  gods  and  goddesses  of  Canaan  and  Chaldea  in- 
duced him  to  barricade  his  house  against  the  vices 
prevailing  round  about  him.  The  exclusivism  of  the 
law  had  the  preservation  of  the  patriarchal  virtue 
of  chastity  for  its  object.  Whenever  the  purity 
of  home  life  is  threatened  in  Biblical  times,  there  is 
a  cry  of  alarm  sounded  throughout  the  camp  of 
Israel  that  rallies  each  and  all  in  defence  of  its  honor. 
But  while  it  is  universally  recognized  that  the 
Jewish  woman  created  a  model  home  life,  the  general 
impression  is  that  her  influence  on  Judaism  at  large 
amounted  to  very  little;  that  only  in  single  instances 
was  her  power  felt,  but  for  the  rest  she  was,  like  any 
other  Oriental  woman,  pushed  into  the  background 
and  forced  to  inactivity.  It  is  my  endeavor,  there- 
fore, to  show  that  in  many  respects  woman  lent 
Judaism  the  character  it  has,  and  that  her  influence, 
deep  and  silent  like  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  has  ever 
been  in  the  ascendant. 

Beginning  with  Biblical  times,  we  find  the 
Hebrew  woman  at  once  occupy  a  far  more  dignified 
position  than  does  the  women  of  other  nations.  True, 
the  story  of  Eden  holds  Eve  responsible  for  the  fate, 
or  fall,  of  man — a  Chaldean  legend  which  has  its 
counterpart  in  the  Greek  tale  of  fair  Pandora,  whose 
curiosity  causes  all  the  ills  of  life  to  come  forth  out 
of  the  fatal  chest,  to  the  chagrin  of  man,  and  leave 
only  hope  as  last  solace;  also  in  the  Zoroastrian  story 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  275 

which  makes  woman  the  very  ally  of  the  Evil  One. 
Still,  the  Bible  does  not  accentuate  her  guilt  so  much  as 
her  frailty.  On  the  other  hand,  the  story  of  her 
formation  out  of  Adam's  rib  is  but  a  poetical  pre- 
sentation of  her  equality  and  partnership  with  man. 
In  point  of  fact,  compared  with  the  women  in  India, 
Persia,  and  Greece  who  were  never  allowed  to  par- 
take of  the  social  life  the  men  enjoyed,  nor  even  of 
their  meals,  the  Hebrew  woman  possesses  an  en- 
viable degree  of  power  and  freedom.  She  moves 
about  with  perfect  ease  and  participates  in  the  social 
or  public  life.  Especially  noteworthy  is  the  fact, 
rarely  met  with  among  other  tribes,  that  she  is  be- 
loved and  respected  for  her  personal  qualities. 
The  Biblical  stories  dwell  with  special  emphasis 
upon  the  beauty  and  wisdom  in  which  the  women  of 
the  patriarchal  or  monarchical  age  excel.  While 
the  preservation  of  kin,  the  obtaining  of  worthy 
heirs,  is  the  chief  consideration  in  the  choice  of  a 
wife,  woman  is  loved  for  her  own  sake,  and  we  hear 
it  testified  by  Jacob  and  Elkanah  that  this  love  is 
more  to  them  than  the  possession  of  children.  And 
this  sentiment  of  pure  love  finds  its  expression  every- 
where in  the  prophetic  writings  as  well  as  in  Hebrew 
poetry,  and  even  in  the  law.  What  greater  mark  of 
respect  can  be  shown  to  the  wife  than  is  offered  in 
the  law  which  ordains  that  the  man  who  has  be- 
trothed a  wife,  but  not  yet  wedded  her,  should  be 
exempt  from  going  to  war?  Much  has  been  written 
regarding  polygamy  in  the  Bible.  The  fact  is  that  it 
is  condemned  on  the  first  page  as  being  in  conflict 
with  the  design  of  the  Creator,  who  made  woman  to 


276          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


be  a  helpmate  and  consort  to  man.  But  the  legislator 
who  deals  with  real  facts,  not  with  mere  ideals,  clearly 
points  to  the  possible  evil  results  arising  from  such  a 
state,  when  speaking  of  a  case  where  the  one  wife 
is  loved  and  the  other  disliked,  and  in  the  ensuing 
discord  the  law  must,  by  all  means,  protect  the 
rights  of  the  disliked  one.  In  fact,  every  deviation 
from  the  divinely-ordained  monogamous  marriage 
in  the  Bible  records  is  either  accompanied  by  some 
plea  or  excuse,  as  in  the  story  of  Abraham  and  Jacob, 
or  followed  by  some  penalty  in  the  shape  of  discord 
and  strife. 

Is  there  anything  in  the  world's  literature  as 
touching  as  the  love  the  prophet  Hosea  harbors  in 
his  breast  for  his  wife,  even  after  she  has  proven 
faithless  to  him?  That  love  revealed  to  his  troubled 
mind  the  profundity  of  God's  all-forgiving  love 
and  mercy  for  His  people  with  all  their  failings. 
Even  the  stern  law  dealing  with  divorce  does  not 
for  a  moment  assume  that  a  man  would  send  off  his 
wife,  unless  she  had  by  her  conduct  given  him  suffi- 
cient reason  to  justify  the  separation.  In  reading 
the  Bible  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the 
laws  and  customs  of  a  nation  cannot  be  changed  with 
one  stroke.  Throughout  antiquity  woman  was 
claimed  by  man  as  his  property.  When  given  in 
marriage  by  father  or  kinsman,  she  only  changed 
masters;  a  will  of  her  own  she  had  not.  But 
while  the  law  remained  the  same,  the  spirit  of  the 
people,  of  prophet  and  law-giver,  tended  toward 
elevating  her  to  a  higher  position  and  recognizing 
her  personality,  her  individual  claims.  Rebecca  was 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM 


asked  whether  she  would  go  with  Eliezer  to  be  Isaac's 
wife.  Likewise,  while  the  Mosaic  law  of  adultery 
applies  only  to  the  woman  that  is  faithless  to  her 
husband,  and  not  to  the  husband  who  is  faithless  to 
his  wife,  we  find  the  prophet  Malachi  rebuke  with 
unsparing  bitterness  the  husband  who  deals  treacher- 
ously with  his  wife,  and  takes  a  stranger  in  her 
place. 

A  careful  study  of  the  laws  prohibiting  kin-mar- 
riages, such  as  were  allowed  and  fostered  among  other 
nations,  also  discloses  the  underlying  motive  of 
freeing  woman  from  the  bondage  of  the  clan,  and 
rendering  marriage  an  institution  based  on  the  full 
recognition  of  woman  as  the  free,  congenial  life- 
partner  of  man. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  influence  of  the  He- 
brew woman  has  been  exaggerated.  Miriam,  De- 
borah, Hulda  and  the  wise  woman  of  Tokoa  have 
been  pointed  out  as  typical  representatives  of  the 
woman  in  Israel.  The  fact  is  that  everywhere  in 
primitive  times  woman  played  a  prominent  part  as 
diviner  and  seer.  Her  receptive  and  intuitive 
nature,  her  emotional  powers,  bring  her  into  closer 
contact  with  the  mysterious  side  of  life,  and  render 
her  the  medium  or  exponent  of  those  occult  forces 
of  the  spirit  that  manifest  themselves  in  all  ages 
and  phases  of  humanity  under  some  form  of  re- 
ligious belief.  Hagar  and  the  wife  of  Manoah,  as 
well  as  Magdalene  in  the  New  Testament,  have 
visions  of  angels,  while  the  men  see  nothing  of  the 
kind.  The  same  psychic  force  that  produces  for- 
tune-tellers and  witches  gives  on  a  higher  stage  the 


278          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


impulse  to  prophecy.  So  there  is  nothing  specifically 
Hebrew  in  woman  appearing  as  prophetess.  But 
there  is  another  side  to  this  religious  proclivity  of 
the  Hebrew  woman,  which  has  not  received  the  at- 
tention it  deserves.  Notice  the  household  gods,  the 
Teraphim,  which  Rachael  steals  from  her  father,  or 
which  Michal,  the  daughter  of  King  Saul,  keeps  in  her 
house  as  David's  wife.  See  with  what  readiness  the 
mother  of  Micah  hands  forth  her  silver  for  the  making 
of  an  idol,  and  the  women  of  Israel  at  the  foot  of 
Mount  Sinai  give  up  their  jewels  for  the  making  of 
the  Golden  Calf.  Listen  attentively  to  the  speeches 
of  Amos  and  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  addressed 
to  the  daughters  of  Israel,  and  to  what  law-giver  and 
historian  say  regarding  the  heathenish  practices  to 
which  the  people  adhered  to  the  very  last,  in  defiance 
of  all  prophetic  monition  and  menace  of  divine 
anger.  The  heathenish,  the  idolatrous  woman  was 
Israel's  stumbling-block  all  through  the  pre-exilic 
ages.  Hebraism — thus  I  call  the  history  of  Israel 
previous  to  the  exile — in  spite  of  the  great  prophets 
that  appeared  illumining  the  wide  world  with  the 
truth  flashed  forth  by  their  visions,  was  a  failure, 
because  the  Hebrew  woman  was  not  trained  for  her 
task  of  guarding  Israel's  treasure.  Miriam,  the 
sister  of  Moses,  voiced  the  true  sentiment  when  she, 
in  common  with  her  brother  Aaron,  rebuked  Moses 
for  having  taken  an  Ethiopian  wife,  and,  when  called 
to  account  for  such  lack  of  respect,  said:  "Hath 
the  Lord  spoken  only  through  Moses  and  not  also 
through  us?"  This  sentiment  became  the  regenerat- 
ing force  when  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  resorted  to  the 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  279 

rather  cruel  measure  of  expelling  the  heathen  wives 
from  the  new  Judean  colony.  It  was  an  unheard-of 
proceeding,  militating  against  the  practice  of  the 
preceding  centuries.  But  it  was  an  amputation 
necessary  to  save  the  main  body  of  the  Jews.  It 
is  true  that,  by  crushing  all  heathen  alliances  and 
forcing  all  such  priests  and  people  as  married  heathen 
women  out  of  the  Jewish  camp,  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
created  a  narrower  faith  than  the  one  the  prophets 
had  preached  and  the  law-giver  had  contemplated. 
Still  they  rendered  Judaism  the  greatest  possible 
service  by  giving  it  Jewish  wives  and  Jewish  mothers 
to  build  up  Jewish  homes.  "The  hallowing  of  the 
home,"  says  Israel  Abrahams  in  his  "Jewish  Life  in 
the  Middle  Ages"  was  one  of  the  earliest  factors  in 
the  development  of  Judaism  after  the  Babylonian 
Exile,  and  monogamy  grew  up  then  as  a  flower  on 
the  family  hearth.  Monogamy  was  the  result,  not 
the  cause,  of  the  idealized  conception  of  the  family 
relations."  Indeed,  Judaism  begins  a  new,  a  higher 
and  holier  life  the  moment  the  Jewess,  consecrated 
anew  to  her  task  as  priestess  of  the  fireside,  enters 
the  home  to  become  its  sole  ruler.  What  is  it 
that  made  Judaism  so  different  from  any  other 
religion?  Nay,  what  distinguishes  Judaism,  since 
the  Babylonian  Exile,  so  essentially  from  Mosaism, 
or  the  Law  laid  down  in  the  written  books  of  Moses? 
What  gave  the  Sabbath  and  festivals,  the  home 
life,  the  table,  the  entire  private  and  social  life  of  the 
Jew  their  peculiar  character?  It  seems  to  me  that  these 
points  have  never  been  carefully  considered  in  con- 
nection with  my  theme:  Woman.  If  we  had  nothing 


280          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


else  but  that  song  of  the  Virtuous  Woman  at  the 
close  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  the  like  of  which  the 
literature  of  no  other  nation  possesses,  that  alone 
would  be  sufficient  testimony  to  the  spirit  of  domestic 
affection  the  Jewess  engendered.  So  does  the  very  fact 
that  the  name  by  which  the  wife  was  called  by  the 
Jews  in  Talmudical  time — debetha,  "the  Mistress  of 
Home" — show  that  in  the  position  accorded  to  her 
she  had  no  rival.  But  I  claim  more  for  the  Jewish 
woman  of  those  days.  I  maintain  that  she  was  the 
main  factor  and  regenerator  of  the  religious  life  of 
the  Jew.  The  rabbis  say  that  the  piety  of  the  Jewish 
woman  worked  as  the  redeeming  power  when  the 
Hebrews  were  in  Egyptian  bondage.  The  Mid- 
rashic  saying  reflects  the  inner  life  of  the  Jew  during 
the  critical  times  of  Syrian  and  Roman  oppression 
and  vice.  Read  the  books  of  the  Maccabees  or  the 
book  of  Judith,  and  you  find  that  there  were  many 
mothers  who,  like  Hannah  with  her  seven  sons,  would 
die  rather  than  break  the  covenant  of  the  fathers. 
The  Jewish  women  were  the  first  to  undergo  mar- 
tyrdom in  the  cause  of  their  religion  during  perse- 
cution. So  we  read  of  many  Jewish  women  in  later 
times  distinguished  by  great  piety.  One  of  them, 
the  wife  of  Abba  Hilkia,  the  grandson  of  Onias  the 
Saint,  so  excelled  her  husband  in  fear  of  God  and  love 
of  man  that,  when  they  both  prayed  for  rain  during 
the  time  of  a  great  drought,  her  prayer  was,  according 
to  the  story,  heard  first.  Beruria,  the  wife  of  Rabbi 
Meir,  who  lived  three  generations  later,  would  not 
allow  her  husband  to  curse  the  vile  crowd,  since 
"God  hated  the  sins  of  man,  but  not  the  sinners." 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  281 


Ostensibly  the  example  of  domestic  piety  and  virtue 
displayed  by  the  Jewish  women  impressed  their 
heathen  neighbors,  and  won  them  in  large  numbers 
for  the  Jewish  faith.  Thus  we  learn  from  Josephus 
that  almost  all  the  women  of  the  Syrian  city  of 
Damascus  were  attached  to  the  Jewish  religion. 
It  is  remarkable  that,  before  Christianity  entered 
the  world  as  a  proselytizing  power,  heathen  women 
of  the  highest  rank,  such  as  Queen  Helen  of  Adiabene 
and  Nero's  wife  Poppea,  and  many  others  whose 
names  are  preserved  in  Talmudic  literature  and  on 
Roman  catacombs,  espoused  the  Jewish  faith  either 
as  perfect  converts,  or  as  semi-proselytes.  What 
then  made  Judaism  so  attractive  to  woman  especially? 
My  answer  is:  The  Jewish  home  with  its  bright  joy, 
its  Sabbath  light,  its  festive  family  gathering,  and 
its  high  standard  of  purity,  and  last  but  not  least, 
the  dignity  it  accorded  to  woman.  Of  these  Sabbath 
lights  and  festal  meals,  Roman  poets  like  Persius  and 
philosophers  like  Seneca  speak  in  mocking  terms, 
but  when  reading  their  satire,  we  cannot  help  feeling 
that,  as  Josephus  actually  observes,  these  things  must 
have  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  heathen 
world.  And  now,  who  kindled  the  Sabbath  lamp 
and  trimmed  the  festal  table,  or  invested  the  home 
with  an  air  of  purity  and  sanctity  that  put  all  the 
shrines  of  heathendom  into  the  shade?  Of  course, 
the  Jewish  woman.  But  who  empowered  her  to  do 
so? 

Follow  me  into  an  obscure  part  of  Jewish  his- 
tory, the  moulding  of  Judaism  after  the  exile  by  the 
three  factions:  The  Sadducees,  the  Essenes  and  the 


282          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

Pharisees.  The  Sadducees,  the  priestly  sons  of 
Zaddok  and  his  followers,  forming  the  aristocracy  of 
blood,  bound  to  observe  the  written  Law  of  Moses 
before  their  lapse  into  Epicurean  vice,  had  the 
maintenance  of  the  temple  and  priesthood  as  their 
only  object  in  view.  Why  should  they  accord  to 
woman  privileges  she  had  not  enjoyed  before?  Why 
should  they  impart  to  private  households  a  sanctity 
which  thus  far  only  the  house  of  God  claimed?  They 
surely  did  not  introduce  the  kindling  of  the  Sabbath 
lights.  On  the  contrary.  We  know  of  the  Samaritans 
and  Karaites,  who  as  a  rule  followed  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  Sadducees,  that  they  considered  it  a  violation 
of  the  Sabbath  to  have  a  light  burn  on  the  Sabbath 
Eve.  Nothing  that  renders  the  Sabbath  a  day  of 
cheer  for  man  and  wife  and  fosters  the  spirit  of  domes- 
ticity, did  they  consider  as  permissible.  This  was 
according  to  many  indications  also  the  view  of  the 
Sadducees.  Especially  were  the  Levitical  laws  of 
purity  rigid  and  inexorable  regarding  woman's  ap- 
proach to  the  temple  precincts  and  her  participation 
in  the  sacred  meals.  Poor  woman!  Martyr  of  her 
maternal  vocation,  she  was,  after  she  had  given  birth 
to  a  child,  barred  out  of  the  sanctuary  for  weeks; 
and  then  she  had  to  offer  sacrifices  not  of  thanks- 
giving, but  of  purification.  In  this  direction,  then, 
the  spiritual  elevation  of  woman  did  not  lie. 

Still  less  regard  did  the  Hasidim  or  the  older 
school  of  the  Pharisees,  represented  afterwards  by 
the  saintly  Essenes,  pay  to  woman.  Banded  to- 
gether as  brotherhoods  for  common  meals  and  com- 
mon devotion,  with  the  view  of  attaining  the  same 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  283 

holiness  and  purity  as  the  priests,  they  invested  the 
Sabbath  with  new  sanctity,  but  were  still  more 
rigorous  than  the  rest  in  their  intercourse  with 
woman,  lest  her  very  touch,  or  breath,  might  defile 
them  and  unfit  them  to  hold  communion  with  the 
holy  spirit.  While  some  went  in  their  asceticism 
so  far  as  to  shun  the  married  state  altogether,  when 
advanced  in  years,  the  Hasidean  code  of  ethics, 
aiming  at  the  highest  ideal  of  purity,  was — to  judge 
from  the  few  rules  and  historical  facts  preserved  to 
us — so  austere  as  to  make  the  domestic  life  of  woman 
almost  unbearable.  At  any  rate,  woman  and  home 
did  not  profit  by  the  influence  of  Essenism. 

The  scribes,  then,  who  enjoined  upon  every 
Jewish  household  the  duty  of  having  the  light  kindled 
on  Sabbath  Eve  and  the  Sabbath  rendered  a  day  of 
domestic  joy,  belonged  to  those  Pharisean  schools 
who  felt  and  recognized  the  elevating,  cheering  and 
sanctifying  influence  of  woman  and  the  home.  And 
we  are  in  the  position  to  fix  the  time  when  that  in- 
fluence became  a  power  to  modify  the  law  and 
render  the  dignity  of  woman  and  the  comfort  of  home, 
the  ruling  principle  of  Rabbinical  practice.  Simeon 
ben  Shatah,  the  brother  of  Queen  Salome  Alexandra, 
the  first  of  the  Pharisean  leaders  who  obtained  a 
decisive  victory  for  his  party  in  the  Sanhedrin,  was 
the  one  who  introduced  legislative  measures  to  secure 
to  the  wife  her  right  of  dowry,  and  by  the  form  of  a 
written  contract — the  Kethuba — in  which  the  hus- 
band pledged  himself  to  support  and  honor  his 
wife,  also  to  protect  her  against  any  whim  and 
abuse.  Henceforth  we  see  the  Jewish  woman,  more 


284          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


and  more,  break  the  fetters  of  social  bondage  and  the 
bars  of  religious  seclusion,  and  make  her  power  felt 
as  a  religious  force,  and  as  a  source  of  practical 
wisdom.  Gradually  the  old  ban  of  Orientalism, 
which  treated  her  like  a  chattel  to  be  bought  and 
sold,  to  be  given  away  and  taken  in  marriage  by 
man  without  her  own  will  and  consent,  is  removed. 
Henceforth  "she  can  no  longer  be  married  without 
her  consent"  according  to  the  Rabbinical  law,  and 
under  circumstances  she  may  demand  a  divorce 
from  her  husband.  Moreover,  she  should  not  be 
married  without  love,  or  without  assurance  being 
given  that  she  be  loved  and  worthy  of  her  husband's 
esteem.  "He  who  weds  a  wife  without  having  seen 
her  before,  or  marries  one  unbecoming  his  station, 
commits  a  five-fold  sin,"  says  the  great  master 
Akiba. 

But  it  was  owing  far  more  to  her  own  spon- 
taneity and  her  self-emancipation  than  to  concessions 
made  by  the  doctors  of  the  law,  that  she  obtained  her 
full  recognition.  The  law  still  puts  her  on  a  par  with 
the  slave  and  the  immature  youth,  considers  her 
testimony  before  the  court  invalid,  and  excludes  her 
from  membership  in  the  Congregation  and  from  all 
the  privileges  of  religious  communion.  She  does  not 
even  count  at  the  grace  after  meal,  w^here  three 
persons  unite  for  solemn  thanksgiving.  Here  the 
ancient  view  of  priest  and  presbyter  still  prevail. 
Nay,  more.  Jose  ben  Johanan,  in  the  Early  Sayings 
of  the  Fathers,  teaches:  "Do  not  talk  much  with 
woman."  How  strict  this  Essene  rule  was,  may  be 
incidentally  learned  from  the  story  of  the  Samaritan 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  285 

woman,  according  to  which  the  people  were  surprised 
to  see  Jesus  talking  with  a  woman.  Notice  with  what 
disregard  of  her  higher  qualities  of  mind  and  soul 
Philo  and  Josephus  still  speak  of  woman.  The  men 
are  to  "thank  God  that  He  did  not  make  them  a 
woman,"  as  the  ancient  ritual  has  it  in  a  formula 
prescribed  by  R.  Meir,  and  apparently  already  fa- 
miliar to  St.  Paul — following  the  example  of  Plato 
and  other  Greek  sages,  if  not  the  more  ancient 
Persian  sages  who  likewise  thanked  God  every  day 
"that  He  did  not  make  them  a  Barbarian,  a  slave 
and  a  woman."  Indeed,  the  law  exempts  woman, 
in  view  of  her  physical  disabilities,  from  observing 
those  commandments  that  are  given  for  stated  times; 
and  the  orthodox  Jew  who  still  recites  that  benedic- 
tion refers  to  this  fact  in  justification  of  the  same. 
But  see  with  what  zeal,  nevertheless,  woman  espoused 
her  faith  and  endeavored,  of  her  own  accord,  to  per- 
form any  religious  duty  she  could.  She  traveled, 
during  the  time  of  the  Temple,  for  miles  to  offer 
her  prayers  on  the  holy  spot,  and  all  through  the 
Talmudic  and  the  medieval  ages  she  was  eager  to 
study  the  Law  and  acquire  proficiency  therein,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  teach  and  to  enter  into  learned  dis- 
putes with  the  rabbis,  or  with  heathen  and  Christian 
sages.  How  powerfully  must  she  have  impressed 
the  rabbis  of  old,  when,  in  commenting  upon  the 
scriptural  verse:  God  "built  the  rib  of  Adam  into 
woman"  they  say:  "God  endowed  her  with  deeper 
wisdom  and  intuition",  and  that  He  created  Eve  as 
the  highest  type  of  beauty  and  plaited  her  hair, 
adorning  her  like  a  bride  to  render  her  attractive 


286          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


to  Adam.  Indeed,  those  stern  rabbis  felt,  and  often 
made  it  a  principle  of  law,  notwithstanding  all 
Levitical  or  Sabbatical  statutes  to  the  contrary, 
that  woman  should  be  a  source  of  joy  in  the  house, 
and  no  matter  how  plain  the  home,  she  should 
spread  an  air  of  contentment  and  happiness  about 
her.  "The  daughters  of  Israel  are  all  beautiful, 
unless  poverty  disfigures  them,"  says  R.  Jishmael, 
Akiba's  companion.  Israel  Zangwill's  Ghetto  women 
do  not  represent  the  true  type  of  Jewesses. 

Christian  writers  often  tell  us  that  Christianity 
emancipated  woman.  This  claim  is  false.  What  are 
the  Marthas  and  Magdalenes  of  the  New  Testament, 
compared  with  Beruria,  the  clever  and  pious  wife 
of  Rabbi  Meir,  or  with  Rachel,  the  wife  of  R.  Akiba 
whose  romantic  love  for  her  father's  shepherd  casts 
a  glow  of  human  pathos  around  the  life  of  Judaism's 
great  hero  and  martyr?  The  Church  produced  fine 
types  of  Sisters  of  Mercy,  but  what  has  Christian 
literature  to  compare  with  the  ideal  picture  of  a 
wife  presented  by  the  rabbis  in  Sarah?  "Three  signs 
of  God's  favor" — the  Midrash  tells  us — "were  mani- 
fested in  the  house  of  Abraham,  as  long  as  Sarah  was 
alive:  The  first  one  was  that,  as  over  the  taber- 
nacle in  the  wilderness,  so  hovered  over  the  tent  of 
Sarah  a  pillar  of  cloud  radiating  with  the  majesty 
of  God  to  make  happiness  and  contentment  reign 
therein.  Secondly,  God's  blessing  rested  in  a  signal 
manner  upon  the  bread  she  baked,  so  that,  the  more 
they  handed  of  it  to  the  poor  and  homeless  who  en- 
tered the  hospitable  house  open  on  all  sides  to  wel- 
come them,  the  more  there  was  to  satisfy  all.  And 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  287 


thirdly,  the  lamp  which  illumined  her  tent,  burned 
in  undiminished  lustre  from  Sabbath  Eve  to  Sabbath 
Eve,  as  if  some  angelic  hand  had  trimmed  and  filled 
it  with  sacred  oil,  to  spread  light  and  cheer  through- 
out the  household  and  hallow  it.  And  when  Sarah 
died,  these  tokens  of  God's  grace  ceased;  but  no 
sooner  did  Rebecca  enter  the  house  as  Isaac's  be- 
trothed, than  the  home  was  again  crowned  with  its 
pristine  glory."  Now  whatever  imagination  may 
have  done  for  this  beautiful  picture  of  the  true  wife, 
actual  experience  must  have  prompted  it.  The 
Jewess  of  the  Talmudical  age  must  have  proved  a 
model  wife  as  guardian  of  home,  as  prompter  of 
religious  sentiment  par  excellence,  and  as  the  minister 
of  charity  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  Indeed, 
in  all  three  qualities  did  the  Jewish  woman  at  all 
times  excel,  and  well  could  a  rabbi  of  the  third 
century,  R.  Eleazar  ben  Pedath,  say:  "He  who  is 
without  a  wife  is  without  joy,  without  happiness, 
without  blessing,  without  peace."  Surely  it  was  out 
of  his  own  experience  that  Akiba  spoke  when  saying: 
"Rich  is  he  who  has  a  wife  beautiful  in  her  actions." 
The  Talmud  is  replete  with  instances  of  great  men 
of  learning  who  received  their  inspiration  for  their 
devotion  to  the  Law  from  their  self-sacrificing  wives. 
Well  could,  therefore,  the  Midrash  portray  to  us  the 
Hebrew  wives  in  Egypt  as  steeling  the  men  with  faith 
and  hope,  when  their  spirits  drooped  under  the  Phar- 
aonic  oppression.  How  significant  it  is  to  learn  that, 
when  God  told  Moses  to  speak  to  the  children  of 
Israel,  preparing  them  for  their  great  mission  as  a 
kingdom  of  priests  and  a  holy  nation,  he  was  first 


288          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

to  address  the  women  as  the  true  representatives  of 
"the  house  of  Israel,"  in  order  to  win  them  for  their 
sacred  task  as  wives  and  mothers. 

But  not  only  religious  zeal,  domestic  affection 
and  tender  humanity  do  we  find  displayed  by  the 
Jewess  of  the  Talmudical  time.  That  broadness  of 
mind  and  love  of  culture  in  which  the  woman  of  to- 
day excels,  was  also  fostered  by  her.  The  women 
of  the  house  of  Hillel,  the  daughter  of  R.  Abbahu  and 
others  were  conversant  in  Greek,  and  thus  enabled 
to  hold  discussions  with  pagan  and  Christian  philoso- 
phers. What  obstacles  they  had  to  overcome  when 
coming  across  a  rabbi  of  the  old  school,  may  be  learned 
from  one  striking  instance.  Ima  Shalom,  the  sister 
of  Rabban  Gamaliel,  possessed  culture  and  wit  in  a 
high  degree.  Once  hearing  a  scoffer  say  to  her 
father:  "Your  God  is  a  thief,  he  stole  a  rib  from 
Adam  while  he  was  asleep,"  she  exclaimed:  "Send 
for  a  sheriff!"  "What  has  happened?  asked  the 
scoffer.  "Thieves,"  she  continued,  "have  broken 
into  my  house,  and  stolen  a  silver  pitcher,  and  put  a 
golden  one  in  its  place."  "And  these  you  call  thieves?" 
"Yet,"  she  answered,  "dost  thou  call  God  a  thief, 
who  stole  a  rib  from  Adam  and  placed  fair  Eve  in 
its  stead!"  Now,  this  high-minded  woman  was  mar- 
ried to  Eliezer  ben  Hyrcanus,  a  fanatical  adherent 
of  the  Shammaite  principle  of  austerity  in  the  Law. 
In  vain  she  endeavored  to  infuse  liberal  ideas  into 
him;  he  remained  harsh  and  treated  her  with  little 
regard.  He  applied  the  law  in  all  its  rigor,  and 
did  not  care  for  the  spirit  of  love  and  home  comfort. 
He  was  in  principle  an  Essene,  an  ascetic,  and  it  is 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  289 

he  who  made  two  statements  often  quoted  as  if 
expressive  of  Talmudical  narrowness.  The  one  is: 
"Woman's  wisdom  only  turns  on  the  spinning 
wheel."  The  other,  "To  let  a  daughter  study  the 
Law  is  to  let  her  spend  her  time  on  folly." 

How  strange,  then,  to  find  our  Eliezer,  and  like- 
wise the  old  Shammaite  school,  condemn  divorce, 
unless  the  wife  has  given  cause  by  immoral  conduct. 
"The  altar  of  God  sheds  tears  over  the  dismissal  of 
the  wife  of  one's  youth,"  Eliezer  says  with  reference  to 
•Malachi's  words:  "The  Lord  hates  divorce";  whereas 
R.  Akiba,  in  common  with  the  whole  school  of  Hillel 
would  allow  divorce  to  take  place  in  every  case  of 
estrangement  of  sentiment  and  discord.  We  are 
in  this  respect  far  more  inclined  to  indorse  as  the 
higher  ethical  view  the  maxim  expressed  in  the 
New  Testament,  "What  God  has  joined  together, 
man  shall  not  put  asunder."  We  must,  however, 
bear  in  mind  that,  if  Judaism  has  followed  the  leading 
of  Akiba  and  the  Hillelite  school,  this  is  not  because 
it  entertains  a  lower  opinion  of  woman  than  does 
the  Essene  school  and  the  Church  which  emanated 
from  the  same,  but  because  it  insists  that  marriage 
and  home  life  should  be  built  on  the  deepest  and 
truest  sentiments  of  love,  on  lasting  relations  of 
mutual  devotion  and  esteem.  Of  course,  we  may 
differ  in  regard  to  this,  and  claim  indissoluble  sacred- 
ness  for  the  marriage  tie.  In  that  respect  the  progress 
of  Jewish  legislation  shows  a  decided  tendency  to 
restrict  the  husband's  power  of  divorcing  his  wife. 
Especially  when  the  Jews  came  under  the  influence 
of  Occidental — not  Christian  so  much  as  German 


290          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


civilization — was  woman's  claim  as  man's  equal 
recognized  by  the  Rabbinical  authorities.  But  al- 
ready the  ancient  rabbis  felt  that  love  may  overcome 
the  harsh  letter  of  the  law.  You  are  probably  familiar 
with  the  story  of  the  couple  who,  after  having  lived 
together  for  years  and  finding  their  marriage  not 
blessed  with  children,  were  ready  in  compliance  with 
the  law  to  be  divorced.  Having  agreed  that,  before 
parting,  the  wife  should  take  the  choicest  treasure 
of  the  house  with  her,  she  waited  until  her  husband 
had  fallen  asleep,  and  then  she  carried  him  into  her 
father's  house,  where  they  were  re-united.  Whereupon 
Simeon  ben  Johai,  the  saint,  invoked  God's  blessing 
upon  them,  and  they  became  happy  parents.  You 
can  observe  how  far  "Reb  Shemuel"  in  the  "Children 
of  the  Ghetto"  is  from  the  true  spirit  of  the  Law. 

Nothing,  in  fact,  characterizes  Judaism  better 
than  the  law  which  insists  that  its  highest  repre- 
sentative before  God,  the  high-priest,  must  have  a 
wife,  or  else  he  cannot  fill  his  sacred  office  on  the 
great  Day  of  Atonement.  Only  he  whose  heart  is 
permeated  by  the  sentiment  of  love  for  wife  and 
home  was  expected,  according  to  the  Talmud,  to 
offer  up  the  prayers  of  the  Community  to  the  uni- 
versal Father  in  heaven,  and  be  heard.  The  Christian 
Church  takes  marriage  to  be  only  a  concession  to 
the  flesh,  and  therefore  insists  that  her  highest 
dignitary,  the  pope,  should,  like  its  founder  or  central 
figure,  be  unfamiliar  with  those  deepest  of  all  human 
feelings,  the  relations  that  bind  man  to  his  home, 
and  have  no  wife.  The  Jewish  religion  centers  in 
the  home  whose  priestess,  whether  as  wife  and 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  291 

mother  or  as  educator  and  fashioner  of  the  soul,  is 
woman. 

Need  I  dwell  at  length  on  what  the  Jewess  was 
during  the  dark  middle  ages,  when  minstrels  sang  of 
love,  but  sinned  against  the  home;  and  when  priests 
and  monks  gloried  in  their  abstinence  vow  and  revelled 
in  illicit  passion;  when  barbarity  and  ignorance  pre- 
vailed all  over  Christendom?  While  the  husband 
and  son  had  to  wage  the  hard  battle  of  existence 
far  away  from  home  throughout  all  the  days  of  the 
week,  facing  the  sneers  of  the  mob,  the  Jewish  wife 
kept  the  lamp  of  faith,  the  flame  of  religious  educa- 
tion, the  Sabbath  light  of  domestic  joy  and  purity, 
bright  upon  the  altar  of  heart  and  home.  The  Jewish 
house-father  knew  why,  on  coming  home  on  the  Sab- 
bath Eve,  he  recited  the  Song  of  the  Virtuous  Woman, 
ever  anew.  The  preservation  of  Jewish  life  and 
sentiment  was  all  the  work  of  the  Jewish  woman. 
Nahida  Remy,  in  her  book  on  the  Jewish  Woman, 
names  only  a  few  of  the  great  representatives  of  her 
sex  who  typified  love  of  learning  and  zeal  for  the  Law 
during  the  centuries  of  persecution.  The  fact  is  that 
everywhere  the  women  exhorted  their  husbands  to 
persevere  in  their  loyalty  to  the  ancestral  faith ;  they 
were  always  the  first  to  undergo  martyrdom  for 
the  glorification  of  God's  name  and  inspire  the  rest 
by  their  example.  They  attended  to  the  affairs  of 
both  the  household  and  the  business  in  order  to  enable 
their  husbands  to  spend  their  lives  in  the  sacred  work 
of  studying  the  Law,  and  as  a  rule  they  did  works 
of  charity  in  a  far  more  kindly  and  gentle  manner 
than  the  men. 


292          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


We  hardly  realize  what  a  fund  of  poetry,  of 
wisdom  and  wit  she  contributed  to  medieval  Judaism ; 
how  she  lent  the  Sabbath  and  the  festival  seasons, 
the  whole  life  of  the  Jew,  its  charms  and  its  rhythm ; 
and  how  her  artistic  talent  provided  also  for  the 
elevation  and  beautification  of  the  divine  service. 

But  we  also  see  the  Jewess  everywhere  keeping 
abreast  of  the  time;  she  shows  greater  familiarity 
than  the  men  with  the  language,  the  literature,  the 
fables,  the  folklore  and  the  wise  sayings  of  the 
surrounding  world.  She  read  not  only  devotional 
books,  but  also  ethical  works  and  legends  written  in 
the  vernacular  and  introduced  the  elements  of  poetry 
and  wit  into  the  monotonous  and  dreary  home  life. 
No  wonder,  if  occasionally  warm  friendship  sprang 
up  between  Jewesses  and  Christian  women  of  high 
rank  in  Spain  and  Italy,  and  it  is  not  surprising  to 
read  that  fear  was  entertained  by  the  priests,  lest 
these  Christian  women  might  be  won  over  to  Judaism 
by  such  friendly  intercourse. 

How  singular,  indeed,  that,  while  a  large  number 
of  prominent  Jews  turned  renegades  and  traitors  to 
their  religion,  there  are,  during  the  Middle  Ages 
but  rare  instances  found,  of  cultured  Jewesses  who 
yielded  to  powerful  influences  and  broke  away  from 
the  faith  of  their  fathers.  As  Professor  Lazarus 
says,  "The  Jewess  was  the  guardian-angel  of  the 
Jewish  race — the  main  preserver  of  Judaism." 

It  is  only  since  the  beginning  of  the  new  era  that 
a  change  has  come  over  the  Jewish  woman.  The 
greater  refinement  and  culture  of  Christian  society 
round  about  her,  and  the  lack  of  true  sentiment  and 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  293 


soul-life  in  the  mere  formal  observance  of  the  an- 
cient rites,  seem  to  have  caused  a  break  in  her  re- 
ligious consciousness,  in  her  soul's  unity  with  God. 
Under  the  leadership  of  the  Mendelssohnian  circles, 
where  enlightenment  meant  apostacy,  the  modern 
Jewess  became  the  pioneer  of  the  social  and  intel- 
lectual emancipation  of  woman,  and  she  has  every- 
where since  then  earned  laurels  in  the  field  of  litera- 
ture, art,  education  and  philanthropy.  As  the  stand- 
ard bearer  of  religion  only  has  she  been  slow  to 
come  forward.  At  the  ark  of  faith  she  has  not  yet 
taken  the  place  assigned  to  her  as  a  Deborah,  Han- 
nah or  Hulda. 

Of  course,  we  glory  in  the  four  women  our  century 
produced,  each  of  whom  shed  bright  lustre  upon 
her  age  and  sex.  Grace  Aguilar,  the  gifted  author 
who  kindled  love  for  the  Jewish  faith  in  thousands 
of  young  Israelites;  and  Emma  Lazarus,  the  poetess, 
who  so  proudly  unfurled  the  banner  of  the  Jew  in 
battle  against  the  anti-Semite;  Judith  Montefiore, 
the  soul  and  inspiration  of  her  illustrious  husband, 
the  Jewish  philanthropist,  Sir  Moses  Montefiore; 
and  not  the  least  of  these  is  Clara  de  Hirsch,  the 
queen  of  all  philanthropists,  whose  name  will  be 
mentioned  with  blessings  innumerable  by  many 
generations  to  come.  But  I  do  not  want  to  speak 
of  individuals.  What  is  Judaism  to  the  Jewess  in 
general  to-day,  I  ask?  The  Jewess  who  has  left 
the  views  and  the  customs  of  the  Ghetto  behind  her 
and  breathes  the  fresh,  invigorating  air  of  modern 
culture  and  refinement,  of  broad  humanity  with 
all  its  aims  and  ideals. 


294          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


When  the  Reform  movement,  child  of  the  period 
of  German  enlightenment,  was  started  in  the  second 
half  of  the  last  century,  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
the  Jewess  were  enlisted  and  her  religious  emancipa- 
tion proclaimed  with  the  implicit  hope  and  confidence 
that  she  would  inaugurate  a  new  era  in  Judaism,  that 
she  would  kindle  the  smouldering  fires  of  religion 
anew  in  the  heart  and  the  home.  All  innovations  in 
Synagog  and  school  were  made  with  the  view  of 
securing  perfect  equality  between  woman  and  man 
before  God,  and  the  emotional  powers  rather  than  the 
intellectual  were  evoked  to  win  men  and  women 
alike  by  the  spirit,  rather  than  by  insistence  on  the 
letter  of  the  law.  And  behold,  woman  has  responded 
to  the  call;  she  has  helped  in  filling  our  pews  and 
lending  greater  solemnity  and  dignity  to  our  service, 
and  new  enthusiasm  and  love  to  our  work  of  educa- 
tion. Conservative  and  liberal  both  build  their  hope 
on  woman  to-day. 

Dare  we  give  expression  to  disappointment,  be- 
cause the  fruitage  is  slow  to  ripen,  the  anticipated 
change  has  not  come  about? 

The  Council  of  Jewish  Women,  offspring  of  the 
World's  Parliament  of  Women,  with  its  two  fields 
of  labor,  study  of  the  Bible  and  its  philanthropic 
circle,  has  also  awakened  new  expectations  in  many 
of  us,  and  given  rise  to  new  visions  and  new  energies 
in  the  cause  of  Judaism.  But  as  yet  the  great  revival 
of  the  Synagog,  so  eagerly  looked  for,  has  not 
come,  nor  has  the  religious  ardor  anywhere  percep- 
tibly increased.  Laudable  efforts  in  starting  Mission 
schools  in  the  poorer  districts  have  been  made; 
individuals  have  been  reclaimed  to  the  Jewish  fold 


WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JUDAISM  295 

by  the  movement;  still,  the  masses  have  not  been 
touched,  the  Jewish  soul  in  its  depth  has  not  been 
stirred.  Not  a  single  seer  has  come  forth  with  a 
prophetic  call;  not  a  single  singer  has  voiced  the 
message  of  the  hour.  And  yet  we  are  in  great  need 
of  poetry  and  song.  We  crave  for  the  word  of  in- 
spiration from  among  the  people,  since  the  pulpit 
has  lost  so  much  of  its  power,  and  the  rabbi,  in  this 
critical  age,  is  well-nigh  bereft  of  his  authority. 

The  great  mistake  which  we  have  been  making 
all  along  is  that  in  the  attempt  at  reforming  the 
Synagog,  we  overlooked  the  greater  need  of  a  re- 
consecrated home  life.  Israel's  first  sanctuary  was 
not  the  tabernacle,  but  the  house.  The  fire  on  the 
altar  of  home  must  be  rekindled;  the  Sabbath  lamp 
must  be  relit;  the  music  of  prayer  and  praise  to  God 
must  be  heard  again  in  our  domestic  circle.  The 
study  of  the  Biblical  and  Jewish  literature  and  the 
science  of  philanthropy  are  noble  objects  and  do 
much  good  in  their  way,  but  they  are  the  concern 
only  of  the  few.  We  require  more  concentrated  ef- 
forts on  behalf  of  religious  education  and  elevation. 
We  need  the  hearty  co-operation  of  the  pew  and  the 
pulpit,  the  full  harmonious  blending  of  heart  and 
head,  of  congregation  and  of  woman's  wise  leadership 
and  council.  Woman's  persuasive  power — says  the 
Midrash — drove  man  out  of  Paradise;  woman's 
light  and  leading  must  bring  him  back. 

At  no  previous  time  were  the  privileges  and 
opportunities,  and  therewith  also  the  duties  and 
responsibilities  of  woman  as  great  as  they  are  to-day. 
It  is  in  woman's  power  to  rescue  our  social  life  from 
the  mire  of  sensuality,  which  threatens  to  engulf  it. 


296          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


and  lift  it  to  higher  aims  and  standards,  so  as  to 
make  the  Jewish  star  of  household  virtue  shine  again 
in  its  pristine  splendor.  Let  every  mother,  every 
daughter  of  Israel  again  make  Judaism  the  glory  and 
central  object  of  her  life,  and  find  her  pride  in  the 
glorification  of  the  Jewish  faith,  in  the  stainless 
purity  and  rectitude  of  every  member  of  her  house, 
in  the  love  and  zeal  for  Jewish  living  and  thinking 
fostered  therein.  Then  we  will  hear  less  of  the  Jewish 
Question,  less  of  prejudice  and  persecution,  less  of  the 
world's  hatred  and  of  life's  woe;  because  each  one  will 
then  possess  a  treasure  worth  living,  worth  dying  and 
worth  suffering  for.  Idealism  is  what  made  the  Jewess 
the  preserver  of  her  race.  Idealism  is  what  we  so 
sorely  need  to-day. 

Life's  stern  battle  for  independence  and  power 
strains  all  the  nerves  of  man,  absorbing  his  interest 
and  energy  to  render  him  a  selfish  utilitarian,  a  mater- 
ialist in  this  materialistic  age.  Woman,  with  a  soul 
truer  to  nature  and  more  responsive  to  the  tender 
appeals  of  religious  duty,  to  the  softer  chords  of 
piety,  is  called  upon  to  hold  aloft  the  banner  of 
idealism,  and  to  kindle  the  lamp  of  fidelity  and 
faith  in  the  home.  May  we  not  confidently  look  for 
the  time  when  the  Jewess  of  to-day,  when  the  self- 
respecting  and  loyal  American  Jewess  with  her  greater 
gifts  of  intellect  and  her  higher  culture  of  heart,  will 
make  a  determined  effort  to  turn  her  home  life,  her 
social  life,  the  life  of  all  entrusted  to  her  care,  God- 
ward  instead  of  worldward,  and  help  in  the  great 
work  of  regeneration  of  Israel,  to  bring  piety  and 
peace  back  to  our  homes,  the  lost  Paradise  back  to 
man?  May  God  speed  the  day!  Amen. 


24. 


THE  ORIGIN  AND  FUNCTION  OF  CERE- 
MONIES IN  JUDAISM.* 

THE  significance  of  ceremony  in  the  religious 
life  of  the  Jew  forms  one  of  the  main  points 
at  issue  between  Orthodoxy  and  Reform.  To  Rab- 
binical Judaism  the  Sinaitic  Law,  written  or  oral,  is 
immutable,  each  of  the  613  commandments  being 
regarded  as  fundamental,  and  the  distinction  made 
between  moral  laws,  dictated  by  reason,  and  ritual 
laws,  which  rather  baffle  reason  and  common  sense, 
did  not  imply  that  the  former  are  of  greater  im- 
portance. While  dividing  the  Mosaic  laws  into  uni- 
versally human  or  social  and  specifically  Jewish  or 
religious  precepts,  Maimonides  expressly  assigns  to 
the  latter  a  higher  rank,  in  view  of  their  ulterior 
spiritual  aims  and  purposes.  Moses  Mendelssohn 
was,  therefore,  in  perfect  accord  with  tradition 
when,  rationalist  as  he  was,  he  declared  the  ceremonial 
laws  to  be  the  essential  portion  of  the  Mosaic  legisla- 
tion, whereas  the  ethical  laws  of  the  Pentateuch, 
being  dictates  of  reason  and  common-sense,  are  the 
universal  property  of  mankind.  "Instead  of  imposed 
dogmatic  beliefs  which  shackle  the  human  intellect, 
those  ceremonies  should  form  a  species  of  picture- 

*Paper  read  before  the  Central  Rabbinical  Conference,  in  1907, 
and  adapted  for  the  general  reader  by  the  omission  of  archeo- 
logical  and  bibliographical  detail. 


298          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

language  to  awaken  and  foster  certain  thoughts  in 
the  minds  of  all,  and  appeal  to  the  heart  of  each 
so  as  to  render  them  guardians  of  pure  theism."  This 
view,  presented  by  Mendelssohn  in  his  Jerusalem, 
prevailed,  and  all  stress  was  laid  upon  the  cere- 
monial law  as  being  peculiarly  Jewish  and  bound 
up  with  the  memories  and  hopes  of  the  Jewish 
people.  It  is,  however,  a  great  inconsistency  on  the 
one  hand  to  denounce  submission  to  an  imposed 
creed  in  the  name  of  liberty  of  conscience,  and 
on  the  other  hand  to  demand  blind  submission  to 
imposed  forms  of  practice  which  no  longer  have  any 
meaning  for  us.  It  is  perfectly  logical  for  him  who 
believes  in  a  supernatural  revelation  to  maintain 
that,  no  matter  whether  they  appeal  to  our  under- 
standing or  not,  the  ritual  laws  demand  obedience 
as  "the  decrees  of  the  great  Ruler  of  Life  concerning 
which  scrutiny  is  not  permissible."  On  the  part  of 
those,  however,  who  deny  the  authenticity  of  the 
Pentateuch,  blind  adherence  to  usages  that  have  no 
justification  in  themselves  is  slavish  practice  without 
conviction,  unworthy  of  thinking  men.  Reform, 
then,  hinges  on  the  question  whether  Judaism  is  a 
system  of  ceremonial  observance  as  binding  upon  the 
Jew  as  is  the  system  of  dogmatic  belief  upon  the 
Christian,  or  whether  Judaism  is  a  system  of  religious 
and  ethical  truths,  the  ceremonies  being  only  the 
means  to  higher  ends,  not  ends  in  themselves.  But 
in  how  far  these  are  to  be  regarded  as  essentially 
Jewish  and  therefore  to  be  unalterably  maintained, 
and  in  how  far  they  present  only  adaptations  from 
older  non-Jewish  life  and,  accordingly,  permit  of 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  299 

modifications,  alterations  and  radical  changes,  is  a 
question  concerning  which  opinions  still  widely  differ. 
In  order  to  reach  positive  conclusions,  a  historic 
review  of  the  ceremonies  in  their  various  stages  of 
growth  is  required,  and  the  principles  underlying 
their  development  in  the  different  phases  of  religious 
life  must  be  investigated  and  established. 

When  speaking  of  ceremony,  we  must  dismiss 
the  notion  we  moderns  have  that  it  is  a  mere  con- 
ventional form  without  intrinsic  value  and  meaning. 
To  go  back  to  the  Latin,  caerimonia  signifies  reverence 
and  awe,  like  the  word  religio  with  which  it  is  fre- 
quently coupled,  while  the  plural  caerimoniae  denotes 
religious  rites.  For  the  pagan  mind  in  general 
the  ceremonies  constitute  religion,  which  is  viewed 
simply  as  a  mode  of  worship  void  of  ethical  purposes. 
In  the  course  of  time,  however,  the  original  object 
of  these  ceremonies  is  forgotten,  and  they  become 
empty  forms,  until  upon  a  higher  stage  they  are  in- 
vested with  new  meaning  and  made  to  convey  higher 
thoughts.  There  is,  consequently,  a  singular  affinity 
noticeable  between  the  ceremonies  of  various  people 
and  classes,  since  as  a  rule,  they  have  a  common 
origin  in  primitive  life.  Ceremonies  are  never  the 
creations  of  individuals;  they  grow  and  change  like 
languages.  They  are,  as  Edward  B.  Tylor  calls 
them,  "the  gesture-language  of  theology."  The 
people  that  crave  for  rain,  for  instance,  would  in 
solemn  manner  pour  out  water  before  the  heavenly 
power  to  suggest  what  it  should  do  for  them,  and 
henceforth  water  libation  becomes  part  of  the  sacri- 
ficial ritual  elsewhere.  Each  ceremony  may  thus 


300          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


be  traced  to  its  origin  in  primitive  time.  When  the 
Occidental  lifts  his  hat  before  a  superior  to-day,  he 
is  unaware  of  the  far  older  form  of  showing  submissive 
self-surrender  by  stripping  oneself  of  all  armaments 
and  equipments,  which,  of  course,  included  the  head- 
gear. This  corresponds  with  the  Oriental  custom  of 
taking  off  the  shoes.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  regarded 
as  disrespectful  in  the  East  to  receive,  or  be  seen  by 
strangers,  bareheaded,  and  it  stands  to  reason  that 
it  is  considered  by  Orientals  still  more  derogatory  to 
the  honor  of  God  to  stand  bareheaded  before  Him 
in  prayer  or  in  sight  of  the  sanctuary.  You  observe, 
at  once  the  pivotal  question  at  issue:  Are  we  as 
Jews  in  Occidental  life  to  be  Orientals  in  the  house 
of  God,  or  are  we  Occidentals  in  every  respect? 

The  Mosaic  ceremonial  system,  impressive  as  it 
is  with  the  authority  of  divine  legislation  and  with  the 
grandeur  of  a  great  world-wide  historic  power,  speaks 
to  us,  nevertheless,  in  a  religious  language  not  our 
own.  We  have  to  retranslate  it  into  our  own  mode 
of  thinking  and  feeling.  It  is  based  upon  sacrifice, 
against  which  our  religious  consciousness  revolts. 
It  rests  upon  notions  of  priestly  holiness  and  purity 
which  we  reject.  It  confines  the  worship  of  the  Most 
High  to  the  priesthood  and  the  sanctuary,  and  fails 
to  bring  God  nigh  to  the  people,  and  home  to  each 
heaven-aspiring  soul.  Mosaism,  with  its  temple 
cult,  is  to  us — and  this  is  the  essential  difference 
between  Reform  and  Orthodox  Judaism — only  the 
preparatory  stage  to  Rabbinism  with  its  Synagogal 
life,  and  to  Modern  Judaism  with  its  many-centered 
religious  life.  Those  who  call  us  Karaites  or  Mosaites 


301 


know  neither  what  Karaism  was,  nor  what  Reform 
Judaism  stands  for.  We  believe  in  the  ever-working 
laws  of  historic  evolution,  and  see  in  assimilation  a 
force  ever  at  work  in  Judaism's  progress.  The  entire 
sacrificial  cult  of  the  Pentateuch  is  the  result  of  a 
powerful  assimilation.  Careful  scientific  investiga- 
tions comparing  the  Babylonian,  the  Phenician 
and  the  old  Arabic  sacrificial  system,  including  even 
the  terminology,  with  that  of  the  Mosaic  Code,  have 
established  the  fact  beyond  a  cavil  of  doubt  that  the 
divine  lawgiver,  or  lawgivers,  simply  adopted  the 
rules  and  customs  of  priestly  practice  prevalent  for 
ages,  while  at  the  same  time  eliminating  such  ele- 
ments as  were  connected  with  idolatry,  witchcraft 
and  the  abominable  orgies  of  the  Astarte  and  Baal 
cult,  and  changing  form  and  character  here  and  there 
to  give  the  whole  service  a  higher  and  more  spiritual 
meaning  and  purpose.  The  fundamental  principle 
that  all  the  sacrificial  and  priestly  practices  should, 
by  various  degrees  of  purity  and  sanctity,  lead  up  to 
and  culminate  in  the  divine  ideal  of  Holiness,  in  a 
Holy  God  whose  sacredness  is  to  eradiate  from  the 
sanctuary  and  impart  itself  to  the  people  over  the 
land,  at  once  lent  the  system  a  peculiar  and  lofty 
character;  but  the  system  itself  as  a  religious  machin- 
ery was  borrowed  from  its  environments.  The  central 
idea  which  pervades  the  entire  sacrificial  service  is 
the  same  that  underlies  the  Semitic,  if  not  primitive 
religion  in  general,  and  that  is,  that  only  blood  as 
the  vital  power  of  man  and  beast  unites  and  reunites 
men  and  God.  Only  blood  possesses  the  power  of 
atonement.  Only  blood  seals  a  covenant  and  recon- 


302          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


ciles  an  angry  deity.  Only  the  signs  of  blood  protect 
the  houses,  the  men  and  the  flocks  against  malign 
spirits.  Read  the  personal  observations  made  in 
Bible  lands  by  Prof.  Curtiss  in  his  "Primitive  Semitic 
Religion"  and  by  Clay  Trumbull  as  recorded  in  his 
"Blood  Covenant"  and  "The  Threshold  Covenant," 
and  you  have  the  key  to  many  religious  ceremonies 
of  ancient  Israel.  New  light  is  there  thrown  upon  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  chapters  of  Exodus,  which 
treat  of  the  Passover  lamb  whose  blood  is  sprinkled 
upon  the  doorsill  and  doorposts,  and  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  firstborn  of  the  flock  and  the  herd,  together  with 
the  signs  upon  the  arm  and  the  forehead.  We  learn 
of  the  shepherds  of  Arabia  and  Palestine  offering  each 
spring  at  the  increase  of  their  flocks  and  herds  some 
of  the  firstborn  as  a  sacrifice  called  Fedu — the  same  as 
Pidion,  "Redemption," — into  the  blood  of  which  they 
dip  the  hand  to  put  the  sign  of  "a  hand"  or  of  the 
letter  Tau,  which  had  originally  the  form  of  a  cross, 
upon  the  doorsill  and  upon  the  forehead  of  men,  and 
sprinkle  some  upon  the  flock  and  the  herd  to  avert 
ill-luck,  or  to  insure  the  divine  blessing.  So  is  every 
new  household,  opened  by  a  moving  tribe,  or  by  a 
newly  married  couple,  consecrated  by  sacrificial 
blood  warding  off  evil  spirits  that  may  beleaguer  it. 
Likewise  is  the  life  of  a  child  in  cases  of  sickness 
or  distress,  dedicated  to  the  local  saint,  bought  off 
by  the  sacrifice  of  a  lamb  or  goat,  and  in  case  of 
poverty  also  by  a  rooster  or  hen.  We  thus  find 
the  closest  similarity  between  the  practices  mentioned 
in  the  Bible  and  those  still  in  use  in  the  Bible  lands. 
Also  in  regard  to  the  festivities  of  the  ingathering  and 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  303 

the  firstlings  of  the  yearly  produce.  As  Maimonides, 
in  the  third  book  of  his  Moreh,  has  suggested  with 
fine  divinatory  powers,  it  was  the  method  of  a  wise 
pedagogy  which  either  made  use  of  pagan  rites  to 
train  the  people  of  Israel  for  higher  religious  views 
and  habits,  or  so  transformed  the  ancient  practices 
as  to  guard  the  people  against  lapsing  into  heathen 
vice  and  cruelty. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  antiquity  knew  of  no 
other  form  of  worship  than  sacrifice.  However 
bitterly  the  great  prophets  in  Israel  condemned  the 
heathen  mode  of  bribing  deity  by  the  blood  and  the 
oil  poured  upon  the  altar,  while  Israel's  God  demanded 
righteous  conduct,  they  could  not  abrogate  the  sacri- 
ficial cult.  Nor  did  they  intend  doing  so.  They  did 
not  accord  to  prayer  and  song  a  higher  place  in  the 
service.  Even  the  great  seer  of  the  Exile,  when  giving 
utterance  to  the  glorious  vision  of  the  time  when  the 
house  of  God  would  become  a  house  of  prayer  for 
all  the  nations,  still  beholds  the  pillars  of  smoke 
rising  from  an  altar  decked  with  holocausts  and 
other  blood  offerings.  And  so  does  "the  incense  of 
sacrifice  offered  to  God  from  the  rising  of  the  sun 
until  its  setting"  betoken  to  the  last  of  the  Prophets 
the  universality  of  religion.  Only  the  Hasidean 
Psalms  XI  and  L  echo  forth  the  clear  note  of  dissent, 
ushering  in  a  new  era  of  religious  life  during  the 
Exile,  as  we  shall  see.  In  the  Mosaic  system  the 
priestly  ritual,  dominant  in  all  sanctuaries,  is  the 
only  legitimate  one.  Prayer  and  confession  of  sin 
are  admitted  as  occasional  outpourings  of  the  indi- 
vidual, yet  only  at  the  outer  parts  of  the  sanctuary. 


304          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Even  the  inspiring  song  and  music  of  Levitical 
choirs  find  no  place,  or  mention,  alongside  of  the 
primitive  horn  (Shofar)  and  trumpet. 

In  all  likelihood  this  simplicity  is  intentional. 
It  was  to  form  a  striking  contrast  to  the  seductive 
orgies  of  the  Canaanite.  This  would  also  account 
for  the  strange  lack  of  ceremonial  prescribed  for  the 
different  holy  days.  Only  the  old  shepherd  festival 
of  spring,  Pesah,  transformed  into  a  memorial  feast 
of  the  Exodus,  has  a  more  elaborate  ritual.  The  three 
agricultural  festivals  still  appear  in  a  rather  shadowy 
form,  except  in  so  far  as  the  number  of  sacrifices  is 
concerned.  There  are  several  indications  in  Scriptural 
passages  that  the  Sukkoth  festivities  of  the  water 
libation  held  in  the  second  temple  originated  in 
ancient  times;  but  the  priestly  legislation  had  no  in- 
terest in  a  public  ceremonial  outside  of  the  sanctuary. 

In  the  Atonement  Day  ceremonial  we  have  a 
peculiar  combination  of  a  primitive  Semitic  and  a 
purely  monotheistic  rite  of  expiation.  The  scape- 
goat sent  out  to  Azazel,  the  goat-like  demon  of  the 
wilderness,  belongs  to  the  same  category  as  the  bird 
sent  out  to  carry  the  disease  of  the  leper  into  the 
wilderness,  and  has  many  analogies  in  ancient  Semitic 
usages.  This  archaic  rite  meant  for  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  originally  the  removal  of  physical  evil 
for  the  new  solar  year.  The  priesthood,  on  the  other 
hand,  expatiated  on  the  rites  of  expiation  for  the 
sanctuary,  the  effects  of  which  only  indirectly  affected 
the  people  for  whom  the  day  was  made  a  fast  day. 
The  whole  ritual  has  an  exclusively  hierarchical 
character,  which  was  changed  only  at  the  hands  of 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  305 


the  Pharisees  in  their  combat  with  Sadduceeism. 
These  only  gave  it  the  character  of  a  grand  symbolic 
act  of  purification  and  divine  atonement. 

The  only  day  which  stands  out  as  a  genuine  Jewish 
institution  without  parallel  in  paganism  is  the 
Sabbath.  It  is  emphatically  declared  to  be  the  sign 
of  the  covenant  between  God  and  Israel.  Unlike 
the  Babylonian  Sabbath,  which  figures  as  a  day  of 
austerity  and  gloom  for  the  royal  representative  of  the 
nation,  the  Mosaic  Sabbath  is  a  day  of  rest  and 
recreation  for  the  whole  nation,  including  the  slave, 
the  stranger  and  the  beast.  It  is  a  testimonial  to 
God  as  the  Creator  of  the  Universe  as  well  as  the 
Liberator  of  man.  Still,  a  ceremonial  of  a  positive 
kind  is  prescribed  only  for  the  priest  who,  besides 
the  additional  sacrifice,  places  the  new  shew-bread 
upon  the  golden  table  each  Sabbath  day,  while  taking 
home  the  old. 

As  the  great  Memorial  day  of  the  deliverance 
from  Egypt,  the  Passover  feast  also  occupies  a  central 
position  in  the  Mosaic  number  of  holy  days.  Many 
ceremonies  cluster  around  it  to  become  reminders 
of  important  religious  and  ethical  laws,  the  unleavened 
bread  of  primitive  time  having  been  rendered  sym- 
bolic of  the  hastened  exodus  of  Israel  from  the  land 
of  bondage. 

There  remain  for  discussion,  then,  those  cere- 
monies particularly  enjoined  as  signs  for  the  body. 
The  most  important  of  these  is  the  sign  of  the  Abra- 
hamitic  covenant.  Here,  too,  the  pedagogical  tend- 
ency of  the  Mosaic  law  becomes  evident,  as  soon  as 
we  compare  the  rite  prescribed  in  Genesis  with  the 


306          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


one  in  use  among  all  the  other  tribes  in  Arabia, 
Africa  and  Australia,  and  find  traces  of  the  older 
primitive  form  also  in  ancient  Biblical  time.  It  is 
the  consecration  of  manhood  at  the  approach  of 
puberty  and  before  marriage  that  is  intended  by  the 
practice  in  primitive  life,  and  the  painful  ordeal 
becomes  a  test  for  the  youth,  as  in  similar  savage 
custom's.  Obviously,  in  assigning  the  tenderest  age 
of  infancy  as  the  time  for  the  performance  of  the 
rite,  when  the  pain,  or  consciousness  of  pain,  is 
minimized,  whereas  Ishmael,  the  father  of  the 
Beduin  tribe,  is  circumcised  at  thirteen  years  of 
age,  the  act  is  elevated  to  the  dignity  of  a  solemn 
initiation  of  the  child  into  the  Abrahamitic  household. 
There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  idea  of  the  Blood- 
Covenant  prevailed  also  in  relation  to  this  rite,  as 
may  be  learned  from  its  relation  to  the  Passover 
feast.  And  this  leads  us  to  the  "sign"  on  the  hand 
and  between  the  eyes  mentioned  in  this  connection 
in  Exodus  xiii,  9  and  16.  Rabbinical  tradition  refers 
this  to  the  Phylacteries  introduced  in  post-Biblical 
time.  But  Samaritan  practice  to  this  very  day  helps 
to  elucidate  the  passage.  The  blood  of  the  Passover- 
lamb  slaughtered  on  Mount  Gerizim  is  being  put  on 
the  arm  and  the  forehead  of  the  children.  Out  of 
such  custom,  which  has  talismanic  character,  the 
Tefillin  or  Phylacteries  developed,  just  as  the  Mezuz- 
zah  grew  out  of  the  other  talismanic  practice  of  be- 
daubing the  doors  with  blood  in  the  shape  of  a  hand 
and  the  like.  The  Deuteronomic  law-giver  suggests 
by  way  of  symbolism  "the  binding  of  the  words  of 
the  Law  on  arm  and  forehead  and  the  inscription  of 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  307 


the  same  on  the  doorposts,"  a  practice  met  with  among 
Moslems  to-day  and  among  Christians  of  old;  and 
this  became  a  fixed  ceremonial  law,  although  the  talis- 
manic  character  of  both  the  Tefillin  and  Mezuzzah 
is  occasionally  alluded  to  in  the  Targum  and  the 
Talmud.  The  Zizith,  too,  which  in  Deuteronomy 
is  merely  enjoined  as  a  lesson  of  public  decorum,  are 
prescribed  in  the  Holiness  Code  as  a  ceremonial 
practice  of  a  religious  nature,  though  the  talismanic 
character  of  the  purple  blue  thread  upon  the  fringes 
is  generally  assumed  by  modern  commentators  and 
seemingly  confirmed  by  Talmudic  utterances. 

A  real  consecration  of  the  entire  people  of  Israel 
as  God's  holy  priest-nation  is  expressed  in  the  dietary 
laws,  the  priestly  origin  and  character  of  which  cannot 
be  doubted  by  the  student  of  comparative  religion. 
Whether  R.  Smith's  theory  of  the  totemitic  signifi- 
cance of  the  unclean,  or  tabooed,  animals,  be  ac- 
cepted or  not,  the  fact  that  the  laws  of  the  Hindoos, 
of  the  Persians,  the  Babylonians  and  the  Egyptians 
forbade  the  same  classes  of  animals  to  the  priesthood, 
and  that  the  Mosaic  Code  itself  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  distinction  between  the  clean  and  the  un- 
clean animals  dates  back  to  the  oldest,  the  Noahidic 
times,  proves  that  the  underlying  principle  is  not  a 
social  or  hygienic,  but  a  specifically  religious  one. 
It  is  the  great  legislative  attempt  to  carry  into  prac- 
tical effect  the  prophetical  idea  expressed  at  the 
Sinai  tic  Revelation:  "Ye  shall  be  unto  Me  a  king- 
dom of  priests  and  a  holy  nation."  It  was,  however, 
on  a  higher  stage,  in  a  more  congenial  religious  atmos- 
phere, that  this  great  plan  could  be  brought  nearer 


308 


to  its  realization,  and  this  was  the  period  of  Hasidean 
or  Pharisaic  and  Rabbinical  Judaism. 

The  difference  in  the  religious  life  between  pre- 
Exilic  and  post-Exilic  Israel  is  so  marked  and  so 
amazingly  great,  that  the  rabbis  could  account  for 
it  only  by  the  legend  that  the  founders  of  the  Syna- 
gogue, "the  Men  of  the  great  Asembly,"  had  seized 
the  Yezer  ha  Ra  by  magic  and  exterminated  him  from 
the  earth,  so  as  to  put  an  end  to  the  idolatrous  propen- 
sities of  the  people.  The  fact  is  that  with  the  rise  of 
Persia  a  new  spirit  entered  the  world  and  brought 
about  a  great  change,  especially  among  the  Jewish 
exiles.  The  higher  conception  of  Deity  which  lent 
to  life  in  general  a  moral  purpose,  though  based  on 
dualism,  demanded  of  the  Parsee  a  purer  form  of 
worship.  The  rising  and  setting  sun,  the  waning  and 
waxing  moon,  the  various  phenomena  of  nature 
presenting  the  combat  of  light  with  darkness,  and 
of  life  with  death,  were  greeted  with  invocations  and 
prayers  rather  than  with  bloody  sacrifice.  The 
sensual  worship  of  the  lascivious  Babylonian  deities 
made  way  for  an  adoration  of  the  god  of  light.  Again 
it  is  the  principle  of  assimilation  which  is  at  work  in 
the  shaping  of  the  Jewish  religion.  Alongside  of  the 
temple  with  its  sacrificial  cult  attended  to  by  the  Sad- 
ducean  hierarchy,  the  Synagog  arises  as  a  new  center 
of  religious  life  created  by  "the  humble"  or  "pious 
ones,"  the  saints  of  the  people,  impregnated  with 
the  prophetic  truths  and  echoing  forth  their  lofty 
aspirations  in  the  psalms,  and  then  in  a  liturgy 
shaped  after  Parsee  models.  An  intense  religious 
enthusiasm  which  finds  its  resonance  in  the  people's 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  309 


heart,  is  awakened  by  these  Hasidim  of  the  type  of 
Daniel,  and  expresses  itself  in  ceremonies  of  a  far 
higher  order  than  is  the  priestly  ritual.  The  origin 
of  the  recital  of  the  Shema,  with  the  preceding  bene- 
diction praising  the  Creator  for  the  light  of  day  and 
Israel's  Only  One  for  the  light  of  the  Torah,  has  been 
traced  to  Parsee  influence.  It  was  not  imitation,  but 
assimilation  that  prompted  all  the  great  improve- 
ments upon  the  old  priestly  cult.  Yes,  the  founders  of 
the  Synagog  were  reformers  in  adopting  the  Parsee 
ceremony  of  greeting  the  orb  of  light  at  its  rise  every 
morning  and  every  evening  at  its  setting;  but  whereas 
the  worshippers  of  Ormuzd  with  their  magic  formula 
hailed  the  sun  as  deity,  the  Hasidim  invoked  God 
as  the  Creator  of  Light  and  Darkness,  expressly 
accentuating  the  monotheistic  doctrine  in  contradic- 
tion to  the  dualism  of  Persia.  In  connection  with  this, 
a  recognition  of  God's  sovereignty,  was  the  ceremony 
of  putting  on  the  Tefillin  and  of  wrapping  the  head 
into  theZizith  (or  Tallith}  made  a  regular  part  of  the 
morning  prayer,  for  which  also  the  Parsee  custom 
offers  an  analogy.  In  fact,  most  of  the  ceremonies 
and  benedictions  are  adaptations  from  Parseeism. 

The  leading  idea  of  the  epoch  ushered  in  by  the 
Persian  dominion  was  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  the 
individual  in  the  religious  life  of  the  nation.  And  of 
this  the  Synagog  became  the  powerful  exponent, 
revolutionizing  religion  by  instituting,  in  place  of  the 
sacrificial  priestly  pomp,  a  simple  service  fervent 
with  true  devotion  and  rich  in  instruction,  to  appeal 
to  all  hearts.  God  stepped,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  dark- 
ness of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  to  which  only  the  elect  of 


310          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


the  priesthood  had  access  once  a  year,  into  the  full 
daylight  of  reason  and  knowledge,  to  become  in  reality 
the  God  and  Father  of  all.  The  Torah  in  the  hand 
of  the  scribe,  the  teacher  and  preacher,  was  to  become 
the  property  of  all ;  and  around  the  ark  containing  it 
and  the  desk  from  which  it  was  read  and  expounded 
to  the  congregation,  sprang  up  ceremonies  full  of 
meaning  and  impressiveness.  The  Torah  lent  to  the 
Sabbath  and  holy  days  a  significance  they  could  not 
have  had  in  ancient  Israel;  it  gave  to  each  season 
of  the  circling  years  a  new  charm  and  rhythm. 
Out  of  the  heart  of  the  religious  community  blos- 
somed forth  the  ideas  which  transformed  the  three 
agricultural  feasts  and  the  feast  of  the  temple  expia- 
tion on  the  tenth  of  Tishri  with  its  herald,  the  day 
of  the  Shofar  blowing,  into  the  great  awakeners  of 
religious  thought  and  sentiment,  and  around  each 
there  began  to  cluster  specific  ceremonies  of  soul- 
stirring  beauty  and  grandeur. 

But  here,  too,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the 
historic  law  of  evolution.  It  is  always  the  few  elect 
who  usher  in  new  ideas.  The  Pharisean  brother- 
hoods, in  reclaiming  for  their  assemblies  the  sanctity 
of  the  priesthood  guaranteed  to  Israel  at  Sinai,  gave 
a  new  solemnity  to  their  Sabbath  and  holy  day 
meals  by  the  Kiddush  and  Habdalah  ceremony, 
made  the  Passover  night  resonant  with  the  joyous 
strains  of  the  Haggadah,  transformed  the  farmer's 
feast  of  the  firstlings  into  a  memorial  day  of  Sinai, 
and  created  the  great  autumnal  season  of  religious 
revival  for  the  Jew.  The  daily  meals  were  also 
lifted  out  of  the  commonplace  and  invested  with 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  311 

priestly  holiness  by  these  brotherhoods.  Seated 
around  a  common  table,  they  began  and  finished 
with  benedictions  and  other  ceremonies,  in  imita- 
tion of  temple  practice  and  that  of  other  religious 
fraternities.  In  like  manner,  social  events,  such 
as  weddings  and  funerals,  or  the  initiation  of 
youths  into  the  study  and  practice  of  the  Torah, 
the  Bar  Mizwah  celebration,  were  made  specific 
religious  solemnities.  Gradually  a  new  factor  of 
religious  life  enters  and  opens  a  new  sphere  for 
ceremonial  observance.  Woman  as  builder  and  guar- 
dian of  the  home  is  more  and  more  recognized,  and 
the  rigor  of  the  Mosaic  purity  laws,  as  well  as  the 
austerity  of  the  Hasidean  saint,  gives  way  to  the 
dictates  of  common  sense.  Henceforth  the  Jewish 
home  is  emblazoned  and  enriched  with  new  cere- 
monies which  accord  to  woman  a  prominent  place 
in  religious  life.  The  kindling  of  the  Sabbath  lamp 
and  the  baking  of  the  Sabbath  bread,  and  the  like, 
invest  domestic  life  with  new  means  of  sanctification. 
In  the  same  measure  as  the  Jew  withdraws  from  the 
political  arena  to  form  an  exclusively  religious  com- 
munity in  the  midst  of  the  nations,  his  life  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave  becomes  a  round  of  ceremonial 
observances  distinguishing  it  from  his  surroundings. 
Yet  as  the  real  purpose  and  origin  of  all  these  rites 
and  ceremonies  were  forgotten,  the  impression  obtains 
that  separation,  distinction  of  the  Jew  from  the  non- 
Jew,  was  the  sole  object,  and  non-Jewish  habits,  even 
of  the  most  innocent  kind,  are  condemned  as  included 
in  the  Mosaic  prohibition  of  Hukkat  ha  Goy,  which 
refers  only  to  the  lewd  practices  of  the  idolatrous 
nations. 


312          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


But  such  is  the  power  of  assimilation  working 
unconsciously  in  Judaism,  that  almost  every  age  and 
country  added  customs  and  ceremonies  of  pagan 
origin  and  superstitious  character.  Such  a  one  is 
the  rite  of  Kapparoth,  the  waiving  and  slaughtering 
of  a  cock,  respectively  hen,  for  males  and  females, 
on  the  eve  of  Yom  Kippur,  a  sort  of  vicarious  sacri- 
fice met  with  also  among  Mohammedans,  and  like- 
wise the  ransoming  of  the  dangerously  sick,  "Pidyon 
ha  Nefesh". 

The  rites  connected  with  marriage,  birth  and  death 
present  a  strange  combination  of  ancient  Oriental 
and  Occidental  practices.  The  wine  and  the  benedic- 
tions at  the  wedding  date  from  the  time  when  the 
sacrificial  meal  cemented  the  matrimonial  covenant, 
whereas  the  ring  as  a  symbol  is  a  medieval  innova- 
tion. Few  people  are  aware  that  the  bridal  veil, 
which  lent  the  name  to  the  Roman  nuptials,  is  but  a 
survival  of  the  cutting-off  of  the  bride's  hair,  a  prac- 
tice still  adhered  to  in  Russia  among  Jews  and 
Gentiles.  So  has  the  Rabbinical  prohibition  to  have 
weddings  take  place  in  holy  seasons  its  parallel  in 
Roman  custom,  while  the  forbidding  of  weddings 
during  the  Omer  days  corresponds  to  the  Roman  and 
English  avoidance  of  May  weddings. 

The  solemnizing  of  the  Berith  Milah  is  neither 
Biblical  nor  Talmudical,  but  was  apparently  adopted 
from  the  Mohammedans.  Especially  interesting  is 
the  adoption  of  the  feast  of  Naming  the  Child 
from  the  Germans  under  the  heathen  name  of 
Holle  Kreisch  for  the  daughter,  since  Oriental  tradi- 
tion had  made  no  provision  for  this  family  event. 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  313 

Especially  large  is  the  number  of  practices 
adopted  by  the  Jew  from  his  surroundings  in  the 
event  of  death.  Superstition, — deisidaemonia  "fear 
of  the  demons"  as  the  Greeks  call  it — is  the  child 
of  fear.  Most  funeral  rites  were  originally  means  of 
pacifying  the  dead  who  claimed  their  part  from  the 
living.  Out  of  the  sacrifices  to  the  dead,  transformed 
later  into  sacrifices  for  the  dead,  developed  all  the 
rites  and  prayers  that  at  a  more  advanced  stage 
became  sources  of  comfort  for  the  living.  The  ancient 
fear  died  away,  and  piety  stepped  into  its  place  to 
preserve  the  old  customs  in  a  new  garb  and  in  a  new 
spirit.  There  is  nothing  that  so  appeals  to  the  Jew 
with  his  innate  love  for  the  fathers  who  sleep  in  the 
dust,  as  does  the  Kaddish  and  the  Yahrzeit.  Yet 
both  have  their  origin  in  fear,  fear  of  the  purgatory 
and  fear  lest  the  unlucky  day  again  bring  death. 
They  have  obtained  a  prominent  place  in  Jewish 
life,  though  their  origin  and  character  are  un-Jewish. 

In  thus  reviewing  the  entire  system  of  Jewish 
observances  we  find  them  to  be  indispensable 
forms  of  expressing  the  religious  feelings  prompted 
by  the  various  events  of  life.  As  we  advance  in 
culture,  enlightenment  and  refinement,  these  various 
ceremonies  may  appear  to  us  as  empty  shells,  void  of 
meaning,  but  we  must  never  forget  that  nothing 
grows  on  the  tree  or  in  the  soil  without  the  shielding 
leaf  and  husk.  Abstract  truth  and  ethical  practice 
fail  to  satisfy  the  religious  craving  of  man.  He  needs 
ceremonies  that  impress  him  with  the  nearness  and 
the  holiness  of  the  divine.  And  while  the  Mosaic 
Code  placed  the  sanctuary  and  the  priesthood  into 


314          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


the  foreground,  often  ignoring  the  life  of  the  people, 
we  see  Pharisaic  and  Rabbinic  Judaism  creating  new 
ceremonies  or  transforming  the  old,  so  as  to  impress 
the  Jew  on  all  occasions  with  his  priestly  sanctity. 
He  rejoices  in  the  multitude  of  observances  which 
surround  his  life  like  so  many  guardian-angels. 
Unlike  his  Christian  neighbor,  who  from  fear  of  the 
Satanic  powers  of  evil  surrenders  to  blind  dogma, 
he  sees  his  path  of  life  lined  with  ceremonies  which 
secure  to  him  the  divine  favor. 

The  question  for  us  to-day,  however,  is :  Can  these 
ceremonies  of  traditional  Judaism  still  occupy  the 
same  place  in  our  life?  True,  they  have  accom- 
plished much  for  the  Jew  of  the  past  in  offering  a 
wondrous  discipline,  which  drilled  him  to  do  soldier's 
duty  in  defending  the  ancestral  inheritance  and  in 
shunning  no  sacrifice  to  uphold  it  against  a  world 
of  bitterest  enmity  and  intolerance.  Still,  they 
have  long  ceased  to  impress  us  with  the  idea  of 
priestly  holiness  and  have  become  "the  work  of  men 
inculcated  by  rote."  Rabbinical  ceremonialism  has 
become  as  unbearable  to  us  as  the  sacrificial  sacer- 
dotalism was  to  the  prophets  of  old.  The  dietary 
and  purity  laws,  whether  Mosaic  or  Rabbinical,  are 
dead  for  most  of  us,  and  no  power  in  the  world  can 
resuscitate  them.  And  this  is  the  case  with  many 
other  ceremonial  institutions  deemed  fundamental 
by  the  law-observing  Orthodox.  We  cannot  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  fact  that,  as  our  entire  Weltanschauung 
changes,  so  must  our  religious  views  necessarily 
change.  In  order  to  have  a  positive  religious  value 
and  significance,  ceremonies  must  either  directly 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  315 


or  symbolically  express  thoughts  and  feelings  that 
appeal  to  us,  while  elevating,  hallowing  and  enriching 
our  lives.  Romanticism,  which  only  loves  ancient 
practices  because  they  are  picturesque  representa- 
tions of  a  dead  past,  is  not  religion,  which  must  above 
all  be  the  voice  of  a  living  truth,  of  a  living  God. 

As  for  modern  Judaism  the  fact  must  be  ack- 
nowledged that  the  same  laws  that  have  been  at  work 
both  in  the  Mosaic  and  in  the  Rabbinic  periods  of 
Judaism  are  still  at  work  in  the  modern  epoch; 
only  with  the  essential  difference  that  in  the  former 
stages  the  work  was  done  by  unconscious  forces  of 
the  Jewish  genius,  for  which  the  religious  terminology 
is  revelation  and  inspiration,  God  working  through 
His  chosen  organs  and  authorities,  whereas  in  our 
age  of  reason  the  religious  progress  is  achieved  by  us 
in  response  to  the  dictates  of  our  own  religious  con- 
sciousness. The  recognition  of  the  fact  that  both 
Mosaism  and  Pharisaism  have  been  borrowing  and 
adopting  forms  of  religious  practice  from  their  sur- 
roundings in  the  shaping  and  reshaping  of  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  Jewish  people,  entitles  us  to  pursue 
the  same  method  of  the  remodeling  of  the  present 
Judaism  in  order  to  revitalize  and  quicken  its  forces. 
Of  course,  innovations  and  reforms  at  first  militate 
against  the  justly  venerated  authority  of  the  past, 
and  it  requires  a  successive  period  of  tacit  assent  to 
legitimize  them  and  render  them  integral  parts  of 
the  whole  system  of  religion. 

Now  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  need  of 
ceremonial  practices  in  our  age.  Doctrine  alone, 
however  lofty,  does  not  stir  the  soul  and  bring  it 


316          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


in  touch  with  the  great  Fountainhead  of  Holiness 
and  Love.  Religious  practices  do.  They  awaken  and 
deepen,  as  Lazarus  says  in  his  "Jewish  Ethics," 
the  sense  of  duty  in  us.  They  develop  our  spiritual 
faculties,  because  they  appeal  to  our  emotional 
nature.  They  impress  us  with  the  holiness  of  life 
much  more  than  abstract  truth  can.  They  bring  all 
the  lessons  of  religion  home  to  us  in  striking,  per- 
suasive form.  The  skeptic  who  remains  cold  when 
he  hears  arguments,  however  convincing,  is  moved 
to  tears  when  some  ceremonial  act  brings  back  to 
him  long-forgotten  memories,  roused  by  associations 
of  thought  and  sentiment  connected  therewith. 
No  religion  can  be  without  such  memorial  "signs", 
least  of  all  Judaism  with  its  wondrous  history  of 
achievement  and  of  endurance.  Ceremonies  are 
the  educators  and  monitors  of  the  people;  they  speak 
to  old  and  young,  to  sage  and  simple-minded  alike 
the  language  of  faith,  of  hope  and  of  loyalty. 

The  question  is,  however,  in  how  far  do  our  in- 
herited religious  practices  fulfill  this  aim  and  object? 
There  is  no  dispute  among  the  most  radical  that  the 
Sabbath  and  festival  days  are  still  most  potent 
ceremonial  institutions,  performing  the  function  of 
educators  for  the  Jewish  community,  the  home  and 
the  individual.  They  revive  the  dormant  soul  of 
the  Jew  ever  anew,  giving  rhythm,  pathos  and  charm 
to  the  life  of  each  and  all.  But,  then,  are  the  cere- 
monies connected  with  each,  real  signs  and  testi- 
monies symbolic  of  the  truths  they  are  to  convey? 
Do  they  speak  an  intelligible  language  to  the  young 
for  whom  they  are,  according  to  Scripture,  chiefly 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  317 


intended?  Here  is  the  place  where  Reform  has  to 
step  in  and  render  the  old  ceremonial  attractive, 
suggestive  and  impressive  for  the  new  generation. 
We  all  realize  to-day  that  the  ceremonies  for  the 
home  have  not  received  sufficient  attention.  The 
importance  of  hallowing  and  enriching  the  Jewish 
home  life  has  not  been  fully  appreciated.  Dr.  Berko- 
witz  has  made  a  good  beginning  with  his  Sabbath 
Eve  Kiddush.  Thus  should  the  beautiful  parental 
blessing  at  each  family  reunion  on  Sabbath  and  holy 
day  eve  again  be  introduced,  to  render  the  whole 
more  impressive.  It  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of 
the  Reformers  that  the  ceremony  of  the  kindling  of 
the  Hanukkah  lights  has  been  revived  in  homes,  where 
the  Christmas  tree  threatened  to  captivate  the 
young  hearts  and  lessen  their  pride  in  their  ancestral 
faith.  Yet  much  more  ought  to  be  done  by  us  to 
awaken  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  and  love  in  the 
young,  by  the  introduction  of  new  appropriate  forms 
where  the  old  ones  have  lost  their  impressiveness. 

At  present  we  need  means  of  strengthening  the 
self-respect  of  the  Jew,  of  arousing  his  Jewish  con- 
sciousness. Especial  emphasis  must  therefore  be 
laid  upon  the  ties  that  bind  him  to  his  past,  which 
alone  will  fill  his  soul  with  pride  in  his  great  heritage. 
In  religion  especially,  where  reverence  plays  so 
prominent  a  role,  the  ancient  institutions  must  be 
treated  with  regard  and  awe,  and  as  long  as  any 
religious  observance  proves  helpful,  it  should  be 
retained.  We  can  herein  learn  from  nature,  never  to 
cast  off  the  old  before  the  new  is  strong  enough 
to  weather  the  storms.  If  the  wholesome  effect 


318          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


made  by  ceremonies  upon  the  parents  is  observed 
by  the  child,  they  will  not  fail  to  work  by  the  mystery 
of  sympathy  upon  the  latter  in  the  plastic  time  of 
youth.  Upon  the  much  neglected  home  of  the  Jew, 
then,  the  ceremonial  system  should  be  centered. 
Religion  should  stand  as  sponsor  at  the  naming  of 
the  child,  and  should  solemnize  each  important 
event  in  the  life  of  the  household,  thus  rendering 
the  home  a  true  sanctuary,  and  father  and  mother 
its  priest  and  priestess,  as  of  yore.  Even  the  recital 
of  the  Shema  each  morning  and  evening  might  be 
transformed  into  a  solemn  domestic  service,  to  leave 
its  ennobling  and  hallowing  impression  upon  each 
member  of  the  household. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  in  a  great 
transition  period.  The  yoke-bearing  age  is  behind 
us.  Formerly  the  ceremonies  were  to  be  observed 
as  divine  commands;  for  us  to-day  they  must  have  an 
intrinsic  value  in  order  to  be  of  binding  force.  Re- 
ligion must  first  of  all  voice  the  innermost  craving  of 
the  human  soul  as  a  child  of  God.  Ceremonies 
which  assign  to  woman  an  inferior  rank  according 
to  Oriental  notions,  are  out  of  place  with  us.  Reform 
Judaism  recognizes  woman  as  man's  equal  and  sees 
in  her  deeper  emotional  nature,  which  is  more  re- 
sponsive to  the  promptings  of  the  spirit,  the  real 
inspiring  influence  for  religious  life  in  the  household. 
Accordingly,  all  the  ceremonies  in  the  domestic  life 
to-day  should  be  Occidental  rather  than  Oriental 
in  form  and  character. 

The  calling  up  of  the  thirteen  year  old  lad,  the 
Bar  Mitzwah,  to  read  from  the  Torah,  is  a  mere  sur- 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  319 


vival  of  the  calling  up  of  all  the  members  of  the 
congregation  to  the  Torah  reading.  The  original 
significance,  which  was  to  indicate  thereby  the 
admission  of  the  lad  into  the  membership  of  the 
congregation,  has  been  forgotten,  and  consequently 
the  usage  to-day  is  meaningless.  The  moment  the 
Oriental  notion  of  the  superiority  of  man  over  woman 
in  religious  life  was  abandoned,  a  form  of  consecration 
for  the  young  of  both  sexes  was  instituted  in  its 
place,  and  the  beautiful  rite  of  confirmation  was 
adopted.  As  a  befitting  conclusion  of  many  years 
of  religious  instruction  it  exerts  a  potent  influence 
upon  the  young  Jews  and  Jewesses,  while  it  has  lent 
new  attractiveness  to  the  Shabuoth  festival,  which 
otherwise  lacked  a  specific  or  characteristic  ceremony 
in  traditional  Judaism. 

Greater  stress  than  in  former  days  is  laid  to-day 
upon  the  recital  of  the  Kaddish  and  similar  trib- 
utes of  affectionate  regard  for  the  dead.  True,  such 
emotional  piety  can  never  replace  true,  religious 
sentiment.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  brighter  side  to 
it,  of  which  account  must  be  taken.  The  crude 
belief  in  resurrection  of  the  dead,  which  has  been  the 
source  of  fear  and  superstitious  practices,  has  made 
way  for  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
And  this  has  lent  new  solemnity  to  that  part  of  the 
service  called  Commemoration  of  the  Dead — a  liturgy 
which,  while  emphasizing  in  classic  form  the  inherited 
trait  of  Jewish  reverence  and  piety,  has  invested  the 
Yom  Kippur  with  new  lustre  for  the  Jew  of  to-day. 

But  above  all,  the  Jewish  religion  must  be  pre- 
sented as  a  factor  of  life  in  humanity's  work,  in  order 


320          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 

to  win  all  hearts  to-day.  It  must  accentuate  the 
universal,  the  human  and  the  practical  side  of  life. 
It  must  train  man  for  the  service  of  mankind.  Are 
our  ceremonials  vocal  of  this  prophetic  truth?  It  is 
by  no  means  sufficient  to  have  symbols  bringing  home 
to  us  the  glorious  memories  of  the  past.  We  must 
have  such  as  hold  before  us  the  great  hopes,  promises 
and  ideals  of  the  future,  together  with  practical  les- 
sons for  the  present.  The  feast  of  redemption  must 
tell  us  of  the  redemption  of  an  oppressed  world  and 
of  the  great  universal  plan  of  liberty,  allotting  its 
burdens  and  its  tasks  to  each  and  all.  So  must  the 
Maccabean  feast  of  lights  proclaim  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  truth  and  justice  over  falsehood,  intoler- 
ance and  wrongdoing  everywhere.  So  will  each  fes- 
tival, the  Day  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law  with  its 
lesson  concerning  Ruth  and  the  Proselyte,  and  Suk- 
koth  with  its  peace  offerings  for  the  seventy  nations 
of  the  world,  lead  us  out  of  the  narrowness  of  the 
national  self  to  the  broad  outlook  of  cosmopolitan 
humanity  with  its  practical  aims.  And  as  the  great 
New  Year's  and  Atonement  Days  preached  since 
wellnigh  two-thousand  years  the  religion  of  man- 
hood and  of  broad  humanity,  may  they  not  become 
also  powerful  instrumentalities  of  uniting  and  recon- 
ciling all  classes  and  races  of  men  by  practical  modes 
of  readjusting  the  inadequacies  of  social  life  sug- 
gested by  symbols  taken  from  the  Yom  Kippur 
Haphthara,  and  by  the  Jubilee  idea  connected  with 
the  Yom  Kippur? 

It  has  been  said  that  in  emphasizing  our  mission 
to  preach  pure  ethical  monotheism,  we  are  fast  losing 


THE  CEREMONIES  IN  JUDAISM  321 

our  Jewishness,  which  is  maintained  only  through 
separatistic  Jewish  observances  of  the  Oriental 
type.  It  seems  to  me  that  they  labor  under  a  great 
misapprehension  who  earnestly  believe  that  the 
Occidental  Jew  in  general  will  ever  fashion  his  social 
life  differently  from  that  of  the  people  amongst  whom 
he  lives.  And  if  he  were  to  do  so,  he  would  merely 
lessen  the  great  opportunities  offered  him  by  this  age 
of  ours  of  rendering  his  religion  "a  light  to  the  nations" 
and  "a  blessing  to  all  families  on  earth."  To  us  Judaism 
is  an  ever-progressive  religion,  and  in  a  congenial 
atmosphere  of  freedom  and  moral  greatness,  it  is 
bound  to  expand,  and  its  symbolic  rites  will  be 
commensurate  in  suggestiveness  and  intrinsic  value. 
No  fear,  then,  that  the  Jew  may  lose  his  identity 
when  he  aspires  to  the  highest  aims  of  life,  buoyed 
up  with  the  consciousness  of  his  mission  for  the 
world.  In  order  to  impress  the  Jew  with  the  great- 
ness of  his  task  and  his  responsibility  as  mankind's 
priest,  we  should  have  certain  ceremonies.  It  is  for 
this  that  new  symbolic  forms  may  have  to  be  created 
expressive  of  the  Jew's  world-duty  as  God's  chosen 
one,  since  the  mere  prohibition  of  intermarriage  or 
the  Abraharaitic  sign  of  the  covenant  is  not  suffi- 
ciently indicative  of  Israel's  priest-dignity. 

I  am  neither  a  prophet  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet, 
but  I  see  the  day  dawning  when  the  larger  view  and 
the  larger  life  of  the  new  age  of  which  the  Jew  par- 
takes in  so  eminent  a  degree,  will  suggest  religious 
practices  and  symbolic  observances  offering  prac- 
tical lessons  of  universal  love,  peace  and  righteousness 
to  the  Jew  as  humanity's  teacher  and  pattern. 


322          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Where  pessimists  see  nothing  but  decline  and  decay, 
I  see  a  gradual  transformation,  leading  to  a  rejuvena- 
tion of  Judaism  and  a  broadening  out  of  its  scope 
and  its  sphere  of  influence. 

Ceremonies  are  the  poetry  of  religion ;  they  invest 
life  with  the  beauty  of  holiness.  The  need  of  such 
has  been  felt  by  Judaism  all  the  more,  because  images 
and  signs  representing  the  Deity  have  at  all  times 
been  scrupulously  shunned.  Imperceptibly,  however, 
old  ceremonies  are  transformed  and  finally  replaced 
by  new  ones,  while  some  have  become  distinctive 
features,  which  must  be  upheld,  to  keep  it  from  dis- 
integration. As  Morris  Joseph  in  his  "Judaism  as 
Life  and  Creed"  correctly  says:  "That  a  law  or  an 
observance  tends  to  keep  up  Jewish  separateness 
is  by  itself  no  valid  argument  for  its  retention.  To 
justify  its  continued  existence  it  must  show  that  it 
still  serves  a  moral  and  religious  purpose,  that  its 
spiritual  vitality  is  unexhausted.  Mere  separateness 
is  not  an  ideal  to  be  cherished.  Rightly  conceived,  it 
is  but  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  the  effective- 
ness of  the  Jew  as  a  religious  instrument.  If  it  fail 
to  secure  that  end,  it  is  an  unmixed  evil."  "Break 
the  barrel  but  let  not  one  drop  of  the  precious  wine 
flow  out!"  This  is  the  way  the  rabbis  characterize 
a  seemingly  impossible  task.  Such  is  the  problem 
Reform  has  to  solve.  Under  the  influence  of  time  the 
old  forms  crumble  and  fall.  We  must  see  to  it  that 
the  fragrance,  the  spirit  of  the  old,  be  not  lost,  as 
we  pass  on  to  the  new. 


25. 
SOLOMON  SCHECHTER.* 

WHEN  one  of  the  world's  great  sages  dies,  all 
mourn  the  loss  of  one  near  and  dear  to  them, 
says  the  Talmud.  Solomon  Schechter's  death  is  an 
irreparable  loss,  not  merely  to  our  sister-institution, 
the  Jewish  Theological  Seminary  of  New  York, 
whose  illustrious  head  and  powerful  reorganizer  he 
was,  but  to  the  entire  American  Jewry  and  the  whole 
learned  world  as  well.  And  it  is  especially  befitting 
that  we,  the  Board  of  Governors,  the  Faculty  and  the 
Student  body  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  should 
give  public  testimony  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  the 
departed  master  was  held  by  us,  in  a  special  Memorial 
Service  given  in  his  honor,  all  the  more  so,  as  the 
impression  which  his  genial  personality  and  the 
beautiful  words  of  wisdom  he  spoke  on  the  occasion 
of  the  dedication  of  this,  our  new  College  Building, 
made  upon  us,  is  still  treasured  in  our  hearts  as  a 
precious  memento.  When  Jacob  the  patriarch  was 
being  gathered  to  his  fathers,  the  Midrash  tells  us, 
all  the  royalties  of  Egypt  deposited  their  crowns 
upon  his  bier,  and,  seeing  these  tokens  of  honor  be- 
stowed upon  so  simple  a  man,  the  Canaanites  cried 
forth:  "This  is  indeed  a  great  mourning  unto 

•Memorial  address  delivered  at  the  Chapel  of  the  Hebrew  Union 
College  on  December  18,  1915. 


324          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Egypt,"  and  they,  too,  laid  down  their  crowns  to 
honor  the  patriarch.  So  on  two  continents  do  Jewish 
and  Christian  scholars  alike  testify  by  their  grief 
that  a  great  man  and  a  prince  of  learning  has  gone 
from  our  midst. 

However,  the  object  of  a  Memorial  Address  is 
not  to  voice  grief  at  the  loss  sustained,  but  to  give 
expression  to  the  truth  that  "the  righteous  are  by 
their  very  death  ushered  into  a  life  of  greater  in- 
fluence and  power;"  nay  more,  that  death  lifts 
them  to  a  loftier  plane  where  their  noble  figure  appears 
illumined  by  the  virtues  they  displayed,  to  make  them 
a  greater  object  of  love,  while  their  foibles  and  short- 
comings pale  before  the  good  they  have  accom- 
plished. And  yet  our  portraiture  must  above  all  be 
true  and  not  have  a  false  coloring.  Judaism  tolerates 
no  apotheosis.  Our  greatest  and  holiest  of  men,  even 
a  Moses,  are  depicted  with  all  their  human  frailty, 
so  that  by  their  humanity  they  may  become  patterns 
by  which  to  mould  our  lives,  a  monition  and  inspira- 
tion to  guide  and  influence  us  in  our  endeavors  and 
aims. 

In  this  light  I  propose  to  present  to  you  the  career 
and  life-work  of  Solomon  Schechter  as  scholar  and 
sage,  as  writer  and  discoverer  of  great  literary  treas- 
ures, as  theologian  and  conservative  leader  of  thought, 
as  a  personality  of  rare  gifts  and  charms,  and  at  the 
same  time  point  out  to  you  in  what  direction  he  should 
be  of  lasting  influence  also  for  us  of  the  Reform  wing 
who  differ  from  him  in  doctrine  and  practice. 

To  Rabbi  Jose  ben  Chalafta  a  Roman  matron 
well  versed  in  Scripture  came  with  the  question: 


SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  325 

"What  strange  praise  are  you  bestowing  on  your  God 
in  saying:  'He  giveth  wisdom  to  the  wise'  (Dan.  II, 
21).  That  He  maketh  the  unwise  wise  would  have 
been  a  much  better  declaration  of  His  power." 
Whereupon  R.  Jose  answered:  "Would  you  hand 
one  of  your  costly  and  delicate  ornaments  to  any 
ordinary  person  you  meet,  and  not  rather  lend  it  only 
to  one  who  knows  how  to  handle  it  well?  It  takes 
the  wise  man  to  make  good  use  of  wisdom  and 
learning."  Wisdom  says:  "I  love  those  who  love  me" 
and  initiates  only  the  few  favored  ones  into  her 
secrets.  Only  genius  possesses  the  master-key  to 
knowledge,  penetrating  into  the  core  of  things. 
Yet  like  the  wild  stream  that  rushes  down  from  the 
high  hills  and  has  to  cut  its  path  through  the  rocks, 
gathering  strength  for  its  wide  march  to  the  distant 
sea  from  the  very  obstacles  it  has  to  overcome,  so 
does  genius  derive  strength  from  privation  and  want 
by  its  very  limitation  and  concentration. 

Like  almost  all  the  scholars  coming  from  the  East, 
young  Schechter  lacked  the  opportunities  of  a  liberal, 
that  is,  classic  and  scientific,  education,  but  he  was 
compensated  by  the  power  of  genius,  which  by 
intuition  unlocked  for  him  the  innermost  depth  of 
Jewish  lore  which  his  keen  intellect  mastered  so 
quickly. 

Schechter's  cradle  stood  in  that  portion  of  Rou- 
mania  which  was  the  hot-bed  of  Chasidism.  He 
himself  told  me:  "The  blood  of  generations  of  Chasi- 
dim  runs  through  my  veins."  And  this  accounts 
for  his  predilection  for  mysticism,  his  fondness  for 
"the  saints  of  Safed"  and  their  miraculous  deeds. 


326          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


"The  Chasidim"  was  the  subject  of  a  paper  with 
which  he  first  stepped  before  an  English-speaking 
audience.  He  understood  the  psychology  of  the 
mystics,  which  remained  a  book  with  seven  seals  for 
such  historians  as  Graetz  and  Geiger  and  their 
followers.  In  fact,  he  inherited  from  the  Chasidim 
the  love  and  zeal  for  all  that  makes  for  saintliness 
and  holiness,  which  forms  such  a  prominent  point 
of  view  in  his  Rabbinic  theology.  The  ethical  works 
of  the  medieval  mystics  were,  like  the  Talmud  and 
Midrash,  his  daily  companions,  and  he  loved  to 
exhibit  to  the  visitor  his  rare  collection  of  the  Techin- 
not  and  Bakashot — books  of  private  devotion  and 
meditation,  Hebrew  and  Judeo-German.  So  he 
brought  home  to  us  the  lives  of  Nahmanides  and  Baal 
Shem  Tob  in  attractive  garb,  and  he  found  delight 
in  Thomas  a  Kempis'  "Imitatio  Dei,"  in  Pascal  and 
Amiel's  letters  as  well  as  in  Chayim  Vital  and  Ye- 
huda ha  Chasid.  Hence  also  his  insistence  on  greater 
enthusiasm  for  Israel's  heritage  and  a  better  culti- 
vation of  the  emotional  side  of  religion.  Above  all 
is  his  constant  accentuation  of  the  spirituality  of 
Judaism,  its  Law  and  its  ceremonies  the  heritage 
of  his  Chasidean  ancestry  and  environment,  forming 
a  striking  contrast  to  the  rationalism  of  the  Western 
Jew  since  the  days  of  Mendelssohn. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  Talmudic  studies,  in  which 
he  excelled  at  an  early  age,  developed  to  a  high  degree 
his  mental  capacities,  and  so  there  arose  in  him  a 
certain  duality  of  view  and  purpose.  The  reasoning 
power,  sharpened  by  the  study  of  the  Halakah,  he 
says,  led  many  of  the  Eastern  Synagogue  either  to 


SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  327 


the  beginnings  of  the  "Juedische  Wissenschaft,"  for 
which  the  Gaon  of  Wilna  stands  as  a  prototype,  or  to 
heresy  and  doubt  such  as  may  be  traced  in  Krochmal. 
It  became  most  typical  in  Solomon  Maimon.  Now 
I  have  it  from  his  own  lips :  After  he  left  the  narrow 
surroundings  of  home  and  entered  the  wide  world 
with  its  dazzling  new  views  of  life,  he  passed  through 
a  crisis  in  which  none  but  Meyer  Friedman  of  the 
Vienna  Beth  ha  Midrash,  his  teacher  and  friend 
to  whom  he  set  such  a  noble  monument  in  his  "Semin- 
ary Addresses,"  became  his  safe  guide,  "or  else"- 
these  were  his  very  words: — "I  might  have  taken 
the  same  stand  in  Judaism  that  you  Reformers 
maintain."  Meyer  Friedman,  one  of  the  finest 
students  of  the  Midrashic  literature — while  Isaac 
Hirsch  Weiss,  his  other  teacher,  was  more  of  a 
Talmudist — implanted  into  Schechter's  soul  that 
profound  love  and  at  the  same  time  that  broad 
historical  and  critical  view  of  Rabbinic  literature 
that  determined  and  fashioned  his  whole  life-work, 
which  confined  itself  to  the  products  of  Rabbinism. 
He  made  him  a  conscientious  student  of  the  Mid- 
rashic texts  by  comparison  with  older  editions  and 
rare  manuscripts,  and  thus  he  became  the  searcher 
for  rare  literary  treasures,  and  finally  the  editor  of 
valuable  works  with  rich  instructive  notes  such  as 
the  Aboth  di  R.  Nathan,  the  Midrash  Ha-Gadol 
and  others  which  won  for  him  a  world-wide  fame. 

To  the  Berlin  University  and  Hochschule  he  came 
as  a  mature  Rabbinic  scholar  who  would  not  take 
on  a  new  view  of  the  past  or  present,  and  with 
probably  the  same  aversion  to  Bible  criticism  as 


328          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


a  fellow  student  of  mine  exhibited  under  my  eyes 
when  he  at  every  critical  remark  made  by  the  pro- 
fessor accompanied  his  notes  with  the  words:  Chas 
Weshalom  "God  beware."  Neither  did  Steinthal's 
mythology  nor  any  other  German  method  of  investi- 
gation attract  him.  Geiger  was  dead,  and  his  historical 
view  of  Judaism  was,  indeed,  too  radical  for  him  to 
find  a  responsive  chord  in  his  heart,  but  Steinschnei- 
der's  vast  biographical  material  and  Israel  Lewy's 
strange  combination  of  a  radical  Talmud  critic  and 
a  saint  in  the  observance  of  the  Rabbinic  Code 
fascinated  him. 

It  was  Claude  Montefiore  who,  while  studying 
under  Frankl  and  Steinthal,  discovered  in  Schechter 
the  rough  diamond  that  would  require  but  slight 
polishing  in  order  to  shine  forth  in  brilliant  radiance 
out  of  dozens  of  sparkling  facets.  He  brought  him 
to  England,  introduced  him  to  the  literary  world  of 
Cambridge  and  London,  made  him  write  one  valuable 
essay  after  another  for  the  "Jewish  Quarterly  Re- 
view" edited  by  him  and  Israel  Abrahams,  and  aided 
him  materially  in  the  edition  of  Aboth  di  R.  Nathan 
in  attractive  classical  form. 

England  was  thus  the  making  of  Schechter, 
and  he,  in  turn,  roused  the  young  English  Jewry 
from  slumber,  creating,  with  the  help  of  a  circle  of 
young  men  that  rallied  around  him,  a  Jewish  renais- 
sance in  a  land  in  which  wealth  and  social  prestige 
together  with  a  proud  and  all-powerful  hierarchical 
orthodoxy  had  kept  the  lamps  of  Jewish  learning 
dim  and  untrimmed.  Soon  the  learned  English 
world  realized  that  a  man  of  power  equipped  with  all 


SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  329 

the  ammunition  for  the  battle  of  the  Lord  had  come 
into  their  midst.  Endowed  with  a  phenomenal 
memory  and  a  still  more  marked  capacity  for  fine, 
vigorous  and  lucid  diction,  acquired  by  a  marvelous 
absorption  of  English  literature,  whether  classic, 
scientific  or  novelistic,  and  a  large  reserve  fund 
of  pithy  sayings  and  clever  stories  culled  from 
everywhere,  he  soon  impressed  old  and  young, 
Christian  and  Jew,  by  the  rare  gifts  of  his  intellect 
and  the  lightning  flashes  of  his  ever-ready  wit. 
Elected  as  Reader  in  Rabbinics  at  Cambridge,  he 
captivated  his  hearers  or  readers  by  his  novel  methods 
of  presentation  of  Jewish  history  and  literature,  and 
by  the  search-light  he  cast  upon  the  three  thousand 
years'  work  of  the  schools  and  the  Synagog  in 
interpreting  the  Scripture,  the  influence  of  which  he 
also  traced  in  New  Testament  teachings,  It  is,  he 
declared,  not  the  letter  in  its  primary  meaning,  but 
the  spirit  which  gave  it  a  secondary  meaning,  and  this 
was  ever  changing  and  shifting  in  accordance  with 
the  views  and  needs  of  time  and  environment  and 
through  assimilation  of  originally  foreign  elements. 
You  see  here  that  in  principle  Schechter  in  England 
was  a  progressive.  Only  his  palliative  was  what  he 
called  Traditional  Judaism  which  holds  fast  to  the 
ancient  practice,  rejecting  innovations  not  approved 
of  by  "Catholic  Israel."  He  thus  claimed  to  repre- 
sent after  English  fashion  the  broader  Jewish  High 
Church,  while  the  narrow  Orthodoxy  around  him 
he  characterized  as  Low  Church. 

His  influence  was  in  the  ascendant  when  he  was 
induced   to  go   to   Italy  and'  examine   the  valuable 


330          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


Rabbinic  manuscripts  in  the  various  libraries  there, 
and  he  returned  with  results  which  enriched  the  store 
of  knowledge  in  the  field  of  Haggadic  lore.  But 
the  zenith  of  his  fame  was  reached  when,  in  connec- 
tion with  his  Ben  Sira  studies  and  after  his  discovery 
of  a  leaf  of  the  Hebrew  Ben  Sira  manuscript  handed 
him  by  Cambridge  lady-travelers  who  had  brought 
it  with  them  from  Egypt,  he  was  sent  to  Cairo  to  in- 
vestigate the  contents  of  the  Genizah.  He  came  back 
not  merely  with  the  larger  part  of  the  original  Ben 
Sira,  the  publications  of  which  stirred  and  astonished 
the  entire  learned  world,  but  also  with  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  scraps  and  scrolls  of  parchment  and  paper 
constituting  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  literary  treas- 
ures, Hebrew,  Arabic  and  Aramaic,  the  contents 
of  which  were  and  are  destined  to  add  entirely  new 
chapters  to  our  history  of  Jew  and  Judaism,  and  to 
open  new  roads  to  scientific  investigations  for  genera- 
tions of  scholars.  The  whole  period  of  the  Geonim 
is  now  being  re-written  in  consequence  of  these  new 
finds,  and  our  view  of  the  Sadducean,  the  Samaritan 
and  the  Karaite  sects  as  well  as  of  the  Falashas 
will  have  to  undergo  a  transformation,  in  view  of 
Schechter's  publication  of  the  document  he  found, 
emanating  from  a  hitherto  altogether  unknown 
sect  in  Damascus  which  called  itself  Zadokites,  and 
which  has  become  a  puzzle  and  an  unsolved  problem 
for  the  student. 

But  the  twenty  years  of  activity  in  England — 
where,  in  fact,  all  the  works  published  by  him  after- 
wards were  substantially  written — were  but  the  pre- 
paration for  his  great,'  and  alas,  only  too  brief  life- 


•SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  331 

work  as  head  of  the  New  York  Seminary  since  1902. 
Two  years  before  he  received  this  call,  I  was  privileged 
to  spend  a  glorious  day  with  him  at  Cambridge, 
and  we  both  found  that,  notwithstanding  all  our 
difference  of  opinion,  we  had  so  much  in  common, 
and  that  we  felt  especially  deeply  concerned  in  the 
imperative  need  of  a  positive  Jewish  theology  for 
our  time,  the  importance  of  which  is  so  lamentably 
underrated  by  the  average  Jewish  scholar.  We 
realized  alike  the  demand  for  a  constructive  system 
of  Jewish  thought,  which  should  be  at  the  same  time 
an  impregnable  fortress  of  defense  against  the  Church 
dogma  and  the  Christian  interpretation  of  Scripture 
on  the  one  hand,  and  against  the  ravages  of  a  destruc- 
tive Bible  Criticism  and  a  rampant  skepticism  and 
unbelief  on  the  other. 

He  then  looked  eagerly  forward  to  the  larger 
field  soon  to  be  opened  for  him  on  American  soil, 
longing,  as  he  said  he  did,  for  "a  Jewish  atmosphere" 
which  he  missed  at  Cambridge,  and  I,  on  my  part, 
indulged  in  the  dream  of  working  side  by  side  with 
him  in  New  York  like  Hillel  and  Shammai  with  the 
maxim:  "Both  views  echo  the  voice  of  the  living 
God."  Providence  ordained  it  otherwise.  Our 
spheres  of  activity  led  us  far  asunder.  During  the 
first  year  of  his  stay  in  New  York  our  relations  were 
of  the  friendliest  nature,  nay,  I  may  say,  intimate, 
sweetened  by  an  almost  daily  intercourse  and  ex- 
change of  views  on  scientific  and  religious  questions. 
Later  on,  our  mutual  friendship  and  esteem  was  never 
diminished  nor  interfered  with  by  occasional  public 
controversies  carried  on  for  the  sake  of  the  cause 


332          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


we  both  held  dear  and  sacred  and  prompted  only  by 
love  of  God  and  truth. 

Naturally,  the  new  environment  as  well  as  the 
new  responsibilities  as  head  of  the  conservative 
school  led  him  with  his  ardor  and  passionate  soul  to 
advocate  what  he  termed  "Reasonable  Orthodoxy," 
and  he  would  occasionally  become  a  bitter  assailant 
of  Reform  in  which  he  beheld  "Christianizing" 
tendencies,  and  which,  owing  to  the  shallowness, 
the  cant,  and  ignorance  displayed  in  many  a  liberal 
pulpit,  seemed  to  him,  like  Hellenistic  Judaism  of  yore, 
to  be  in  danger  of  drifting  away  altogether  from  the 
moorings  of  the  Synagog.  All  the  more  he  insisted 
on  the  preservation  of  the  old  landmarks,  the  old 
liturgy  and  ceremonies  in  Synagog  and  home. 
As  to  your  "Prophetic  Judaism,"  he  said  wittily: 
"One  cannot  live  on  oxygen  only."  And  as  to  those 
who  want  to  reduce  Judaism  to  a  system  of  social 
justice  and  social  service,  he  sarcastically  points  to 
the  ancient  law  concerning  the  practice  of  benevolence 
and  its  effect  on  Jewish  life,  saying:  "All  these  works 
were  done  during  the  centuries  before  the  ugly  word 
Altruism  was  invented."  Thus  he  endeavored  at 
least  to  achieve  what  the  rabbis  ascribe  to  the  Men 
of  the  Great  Synagogue:  "They  received  the  attri- 
bute of  greatness,  because  they  restored  the  law  to 
its  pristine  glory." 

Solomon  Schechter,  with  the  staff  of  eminent  schol- 
ars at  his  side,  raised  the  New  York  Seminary  to  a 
high  standard  of  efficiency  and  learning,  and  thereby 
strengthened  greatly  the  cause  of  Orthodoxy.  In 
fact,  he  made  enlightened  Conservatism  more  power- 


SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  333 


ful,  more  popular  in  the  East,  nay,  fashionable. 
But  he  achieved  the  far  greater  task  of  awakening 
a  new  zeal  and  love  for  Jewish  learning  and  a  new 
interest  in  Jewish  literature  in  all  circles.  He  brought 
about  a  revival  of  Jewish  learning  in  this  country. 
He  loved  with  his  whole  heart  the  land  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  whom  he  admired  and  whose  life  he  fondly 
studied.  He  filled  us  all,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
with  deeper  respect  and  reverence  for  all  the  great 
men  and  the  grand  doings  of  the  past.  But  the  chief 
lesson  he  preached,  not  only  to  his  disciples  at  the 
Seminary  but  to  all  of  us,  teachers  and  learners,  is 
the  lesson  so  much  needed,  of  greater  spirituality. 
When  studying  Bible  or  Talmud,  the  literature  or 
the  history  of  the  Jew,  teachers  and  disciples  dwell 
too  much  on  the  surface  of  things,  on  the  words  and 
sentences,  the  outward  facts  and  forms,  instead  of 
penetrating  to  the  core  and  kernel,  to  the  soul  of 
prophet  and  psalmist,  of  sage  and  saint.  Get  at 
the  soul  of  men  and  things,  the  soul  of  the  Jew  and 
Judaism,  the  religious  substance,  the  flood-gate  of 
holiness,  and  you  will  feel  the  quickening  power  of 
the  Torah,  the  burning  flame  of  Sinai's  fire,  and  you 
will  not  go  to  Golgotha  for  the  understanding  of  our 
past  and  of  our  duty  to  the  world.  Be  not  followers 
of  the  Church,  which  has  her  best  from  us,  but  leaders; 
not  imitators,  but  masters  of  the  Law.  This  is  the 
wholesome  monition  of  Schechter's  theology  which 
should  be  again  heeded  by  us,  as  it  was  actually 
heeded  and  felt  by  our  great  Reform  pioneers.  Like 
yon  father  in  the  fable  who  before  dying  said  to  his 
sons:  "There  are  hidden  treasures  in  the  acres  I 


334          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


left  to  you,  dig  for  them,"  and  when  they  digged 
and  digged,  the  promised  treasures  could  not  be 
found,  but  when  the  harvest  time  came,  behold, 
they  reaped  ten-fold  of  what  they  had  gathered  in 
former  years,  and  thus  the  father's  words  were  veri- 
fied— so  does  Solomon  Schechter  say  to  all  who  study 
the  Law,  the  history  and  literature  of  Israel:  "Dig, 
dig  deeper  and  ever  deeper  into  the  soil  of  the  Torah, 
and  you  will  reap  ever  richer  fruitage,  untold  blessings 
of  the  spirit." 

And  after  all,  we  of  the  Reform  wing  need  more  of 
the  spirit,  more  of  the  soul  of  Judaism,  which  is  its 
religious  truth,  just  because  we  look  more  to  the 
essentials  and  less  to  the  forms,  because  our  field 
of  study  should  comprise  the  whole  process  of  evolu- 
tion of  the  Jewish  truth  from  its  very  beginning,  and 
extend  to  the  very  end  of  human  history  as  the  scope 
of  our  Messianic  mission.  To  us  the  Torah  begins 
with  man  as  the  son  of  God,  and  ends  with  the  whole 
family  of  men,  to  be  made  one  by  God's  law  of  jus- 
tice and  truth.  Our  Zion  is  not  a  nationalistic  con- 
cern, but  the  symbol  of  a  world-union  established 
upon  a  universal  allegiance  to  the  Only  One  and  Holy 
God  of  Israel.  And  let  me  say  in  this  connection  that 
Schechter's  Zionism  aimed  at  nothing  but  the  full 
unfolding  of  the  religious  soul  of  Jew  and  Judaism, 
whereas  a  Zionism  without  religion  and  without  God, 
the  so-called  Nationalism,  is  most  vehemently  de- 
nounced by  him  as  un-Jewish. 

So  let  us  thank  God  to-day  for  having  given  us  in 
Solomon  Schechter  a  banner-bearer  of  light,  a  man 
of  the  spirit,  an  interpreter  of  Israel's  soul,  a  zealous 


SOLOMON  SCHECHTER  335 


champion  of  the  Torah,  even  though  he  represented, 
as  he  said  to  us  nearly  three  years  ago  from  this  pul- 
pit, "His  Majesty's  Opposition."  Judaism  always  had, 
and  in  fact  will  always  need,  its  two  opposing  forces, 
Conservative  and  Progressive,  just  as  the  stars  in 
heaven  are  carried  along  by  a  centripetal  and  centrif- 
ugal power  to  keep  them  on  the  right  track;  just  as 
the  bird  while  soaring  along  the  sky  needs  its  two  wings 
to  fly  steadily  onward.  Each  wing  must  work  as  the 
right  balancing  force  to  the  other.  Thus  there  will 
be  mutual  recognition  and  helpfulness.  This  spirit 
was  especially  manifested  by  Schechter  in  his  later 
years. 

Thus  we,  the  representatives  of  the  two  wings  of 
American  Judaism,  have  worked  together  in  mutual 
esteem  and  fellowship  at  the  translation  of  the  Bible, 
which  was  completed  but  a  few  weeks  ago,  and  we 
looked  forward  to  the  taking  up  of  the  more  arduous 
task  of  editing  and  translating  the  master  works  of 
the  Jewish  Classics  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Solomon  Schechter,  who  was  actually  the  sponsor 
of  the  great  undertaking,  while  the  generosity  of 
Jacob  H.  Schiff  furnished  the  capital  for  the  same. 
God  in  His  inscrutable  wisdom  has  summoned  the 
revered  master  to  the  Academy  on  high,  and  we,  his 
co-workers,  shall  sadly  miss  the  unique  personality, 
the  venerable  man  with  the  leonine  head,  who  was 
so  human  with  his  healthy  laughter,  his  sledge- 
hammer wit  and  his  humorous  stories,  and  again 
with  his  fierce  outbursts  of  temper  and  his  terrible 
scolding  and  condemning,  and  yet  so  true  and  loyal 
and  full  only  of  zeal  for  God  and  His  Law.  He  is  now 


336          HEBREW  UNION  COLLEGE  ADDRESSES 


with  his  completed  life-work  before  the  eternal  Master 
to  receive  his  reward,  and  to  radiate  light  and  bles- 
sing unending  from  above  among  men  on  earth. 
So  let  us  bless  God  and  the  memory  of  His  servant, 
saying  with  the  Psalmist:  "Bless  ye  all  His  angels 
mighty  in  strength,  His  servants  fulfilling  His  will." 
Amen. 


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